The First Rostillian War
by coolmccool5
Summary: Inspired by the powerful BBC, Discovery and Military Channel documentary series "The First World War" except based in the universe of Rostil, part of Max Barry's online game Nationstates. Will likely go back and fix depending on how the official timeline for the war turns out, as it is a work in progress. Slight crossover with various series, particularly Valkyria Chronicles.
1. The Race to Arms (1912 - 1913)

**The First Rostillian War**

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The First Rostillian War started almost by accident. It ended just as strangely.

In between, it was more destructive than any war had ever been up to that point. More Russo-Spanish, Euro Asian, Britannian, and Roman soldiers died in the First Rostillian War, than in the second.

It was the first genuinely global conflict; fought not just on the fields of Poland, Beusuandille, and Rome; but up mountains, across deserts, at sea and in the air.

The First Rostillian War shaped the 20th Century. It led to the Russo-Spanish Revolution in 1921. It launched the Californian Republic as a world power.

The fault lines from its horribly failed peace settlement, led the whole of Rostil into a second terrible war, less than twenty years later; and then to the Cold War.

But the ideas that the men (and women) of 1912 through 1919 fought for shaped Rostil for years to come: Nationalism and democracy; the rule of international law; and the rights of nations.

Now, relive the war, and its bitter unresolved consequences.

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**Episode One:**

**The Race to Arms**

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The conflict started in Russo-Spain over a hundred years ago, in the year 1912…

At the start of the 20th Century, as it is today, the western half of the continent of Sotia was the most unstable part of Rostil.

It was here, that three great empires fought for power and influence: The Russo-Spanish Empire; The Belkan; and the Roman.

The true trigger of the war was from both the Beusuan Empire -on the continent at the western end of the Mare Neptunis-, and the Russo-Spanish Empire.

Industry was a long slow time in coming to the Greater Russo-Spanish Empire, it was not a place friendly to the ideas of machinery and the 'modern world', so much so that the Industrial Revolution for the Empire did not occur until 1870, at which point the world changed. The Empire had always been respected; even feared due to their matchless navy and zealous armies, but the Industrial Revolution got the gears turning, literally.

Machinery made the production of arms easier certainly; but also the production of goods and agriculture were changed forever. Over night almost, the Empire became less a medieval land of magic and sorcery and more of a modern, 'proper' nation. In 1905 they changed the face of naval warfare forever; introducing the IES _Yordanov_, while not the first armored warship; the world's first uniform battery armored ship; the first battleship. One year later it's sister-ship the IES _Romanov_ followed and soon enough thereafter the Arms Race for the Dreadnought began.

Meanwhile the Beusuan Empire had its coronation of its then newest, and youngest, king, just a year earlier.

"_That extraordinary empire that is Beusuandille, is less of an empire, or a kingdom, or a state, than the personal property of its ruling family, whose hereditary talent of the acquisition of land is recorded on the map of Rostil today."_

– Peter R. Connolly, Euro Asian Ambassador, Dinsmark

The Beusuan Empire was also an empire in a constant state of crisis.

In 1903, there were nationalist demonstrations in Selene. There was rioting across its empire in the years that followed. By 1912, there had been ethnic unrest in almost every part of the Beusuan Empire. Local parliaments were suspended. Troops brought in to restore order.

Relations between the Beusuans and the Russo-Spanish were at an all time high, much to the disgust of Cornelius' inner circle: the chivalric order known as "The Golden Spyglass".

On June 30, 1912, an ambassador from Beusuandille arrived on a diplomatic visit to the Russo-Spanish city of Urbis Lumen. As the ambassador's car passed the first bridge, a shady man threw a bomb. The bomb bounced off the car, exploding behind it, wounding a few policemen and some bystanders.

After stopping to ask of the casualties, the Beusuan ambassador arrived at the town hall. There, the mayor of Urbis Lumen began his official welcome speech. The ambassador interrupted,

"_Lord Mayor, what the hell is the good of your speeches?! I come to Urbis Lumen on a friendly visit, and some stupid idiot throws a bomb at me! This is outrageous!"_

After the meeting, the Beusuan ambassador left the town hall. He should've been driven straight along the river, going too fast to give any other suspected assassins a chance. But his driver took a wrong turn.

As the car tried to reverse onto the main road, another shady man came out and came face-to-face with the Beusuan ambassador.

"_At that moment, I heard the crack of a pistol shot. Followed swiftly by another, and in that same split second, I saw a shady-looking man standing right in front of me, being thrown to the ground by some bystanders, and the shining sabre of a security guard descending on him, killing him instantly."_ – Civilian bystander witnessing the gruesome sight.

"_A thin stream of blood spurted from the ambassador's mouth onto my right cheek. I asked him if he was okay. He only replied, 'Its nothing.'."_ – Driver of the ambassador's car.

The Beusuan ambassador died on the way to hospital.

The people of both Beusuandille and Russo-Spain never really knew who killed the ambassador. But the Beusuans made the same leap as the world did: that Russo-Spain may as well as pulled the trigger herself.

Beusuandille and Russo-Spain's relations deteriorated at alarming rates as Beusuandille accuses Russo-Spanish chivalric orders of organizing the assassination. The knights denied any such claim and are personally affronted; leading to further diplomatic problems.

The death of the Beusuan ambassador did not immediately set the world alight. International tension throughout the remainder of 1912 remained relatively low. But behind the scenes in Selene, Beusuan military leaders were planning on how to take revenge on Russo-Spain… Without getting stamped on by Russo-Spain's powerful friends.

"_I expressed to his imperial majesty, that war was inevitable. 'That is entirely correct.' said his majesty. 'But how are you going to wage war if everyone, in particular, Euro Asia and Rome are going to attack us?' 'We have secret backing from the Belkan Nationalist Empire.' I replied. His majesty gave me a searching look and asked, 'Can you be certain of that?'"_

– Beusuan Army Chief of Staff

This was the point in which what would have been a war between just Russo-Spanish and the Beusuan Empires began to turn into the First Rostillian War. The Beusuan Emperor turned to the Belkan National Socialists for support. On the 12th of September, he got just what he wanted.

"_The Belkan Government has the opinion that _we_ must decide what is to be done. Whatever we decide, we will always find the Belkan Nationalist Empire on our side, faithful ally, and friend of our monarchy"_

– Beusuan Ambassador, Dinsmark

- Telegram to Selene

Earlier in 1911, the Belkan Kaiser was overthrown by the National Socialists in a coup d'état. When the Beusuan Empire came to them for help in August 1912, they immediately gave their backing toward their ally. But nothing in Rostil happened in isolation.

Rostil as a whole was divided into two camps:

On one side were Belka and Beusuandille, while on the other were Russo-Spain, Euro Asia and Rome. War with one could mean war with the others. No one would know what would happen if Russo-Spain was attacked. Euro Asia would have to attack Beusuandille in order to protect Russo-Spain. Then Belka would have to attack Euro Asia to protect Beusuandille.

The Belkan Foreign Minister felt that Beusuandille would quietly settle things against Russo-Spain.

It was the Belkan National Socialists' confident support that pushed Beusuandille forward. The world was being pushed to war, by the Belkans' wishful thinking…and ambition. But the world would not be set alight until January 1913.

In December of 1912, Beusuandille's declaration of war caught the world's diplomats napping.

In Saint Ark, the Euro Asian Foreign Minister spoke frankly to the ambassadors of both Grand Britannia and Amerique.

"_Beusuandille would not have acted so aggressively without the consent of the Belkan National Socialist Party and their cultic ways. I hope the Britannian and Ameri governments would consider themselves on the side of Russo-Spain, Euro Asia and Rome without delay."_

The Entente Powers were convinced that the Belkan Nationalist Empire was warmongering. On December 17th, Euro Asia called up on her reserves. This was the second key stage of the crisis, as Britannia's Foreign Secretary warned on the 19th of December.

"_From the moment that the situation ceases to be a matter between the empires of Beusuandille and Russo-Spain, and becomes one in which another great power is involved, it could not benign that this could become the greatest catastrophe that ever happened in the world."_

On the 15th of January, 1913, the Russo-Spanish Empire reiterated Beusuandille's declaration of war upon it when Beusuandille invaded the Grand Duchy of San Marie; Russo-Spain's largest crown colony.

On the 17th of January, Euro Asia would declare its own state of war on Beusuandille after the Beusuan Royal Navy seized control of Port Royal Island.

The First Rostillian War had effectively begun…

Russo-Spain's and Euro Asia's alliance with Rome meant that Belka faced a war on two fronts, possibly three if the Birkainians were to enter the conflict on the side of the Entente. Her only hope was to defeat the Romans in the west before either the Euro Asians and Birkainians had a chance to invade them in the north and east. There was no time to wait and see. To the Belkan National Socialists, mobilization from either Euro Asia or Birkaine meant war.

Supposedly the Belkans weren't looking for a fight, though the National Socialists secretly wanted one, even though they admitted that a Sotian war would be long and devastating…Even for the victors. But if it was going to happen, the National Socialists thought, better sooner than later.

On the 25th of January, 1913, Belka declared war on both Euro Asia and Russo-Spain. Two days later, Belka declared war on Euro Asia's and Russo-Spain's ally Rome.

The only great powers still on the sidelines were Ameriqua and Britannia.

In February of 1913, both Amerique and Britannia were still at peace…But only just.

"_We've been in a state of great excitement, as all the reservists were called up. All the railways are guarded. Everything points to The War, so long expected to be brought upon us."_

– Ameri School Teacher

But Britannia and Amerique were the only great powers who could not claim they were the victims of aggression. Nobody had attacked them, so why should they fight? Nor they bound by treaty obligations, as the Britannia's Foreign Secretary assured Parliament.

"_Both we and the Ameri are not parties to the Russo-Spanish-Euro Asian-Roman Alliance. We don't even know the terms of their alliance."_

But in private, Britannian and Ameri leaders knew they both had to fight. If Britannia stayed neutral, the war would still threaten the country's vast empire, its global trade and security. The same thing applied to the Ameri with her imperial colonies in Africanus and its holdings in Nubia. And they both needed to stay on friendly terms with Euro Asia, Russo-Spain and Rome. Even in peacetime for example, Britannia was not powerful enough to protect her empire against everyone.

In Africanus and the Middle East, the safety of Britannian and Ameri colonies depended on Roman and Russo-Spanish goodwill. In 1913, both Britannia and Ameri feared their friends, as much as their enemies.

"_If we fail both Russo-Spain and Euro Asia now, we would not be able to maintain a co-operation with them in the Mare Neptunis, which is of such vital importance to us for trade."_

– Britannian Ambassador, Urbis Lumen

Further more, both Britannia and Amerique (Britannia most importantly) could not afford a Sotia dominated by the Belkan Nationalist Empire. If Belka overran the Ameri and Roman ports, Britannia's control of the seas would be under threat.

On the 20th of February, 1913, Britannia declared war on both Beusuandille and Belka. Amerique declared war on Beusuandille and Belka five days later.

The Britannians had a war book, listing what to do in an emergency. The country's leaders knew the war would be a long and painful one; a slow process of blockade; of starving the enemy out.

But most civilians never knew what they were getting themselves into. Throughout Rostil, there was a run on the banks. Most people thought that Britannia, with one of the largest navies in the world, would only be fighting a sea war.

But the weapons, to which the world went to war with, were so new, that they were never fired in anger. Countries were armed with dreadnoughts and submarines less than ten years old. Nobody really knew how to use them… Nobody on Sotia had ever fought a war against each other in over forty years.

Though it was clear that this war would not be easy, quick, or clean…

On the Roman Front, an Ameri ambulance driver wrote home to his son…

"_You ever think of your daddy, walking all over ploughed fields and getting very used to shells exploding all over the place? I really like to hear from you. How's school? Don't be too quick to learn the geography of the world. I fear that it's all about to change…"_

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In the next episode of The First Rostillian War, Belkan armies roll into both Poland and Rome, leaving a trail of atrocities in their wake. And the Poles, aided by Euro Asia; and Rome, aided by both Amerique and Britannia, fight for their lives.

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**So there you have it. The first episode of this "Docufic". I'm working on the next three chapters as I speak. So, if you have any reviews, be sure to leave some.**


	2. Under the Kaiser Eagle (1913)

**After a bit of a delay, here's Episode Two of the DocuFic known as The First Rostillian War.**

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**The First Rostillian War**

Fort Kaczka: Doomed Polish obstacle in Belka's path.

The fort's guardians, among the first of the war's millions of caualties.

In the opening months, a new mold for a new kind of war was cast in the west. Industrialized nations locked in conflict. Over eleven million men armed with the latest technology. Twenty million civilians under brutal occupation.

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**Episode Two**

**Under the Kaiser Eagle**

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"_Jetzt das Schwert entscheiden muss. In der Mitte des Friedens haben wir angegriffen worden. Belka united wurde nie erobert. Wir werden mit dem Grosskaiserin Keres an unserer Seite zu fördern, wie sie mit unseren Vorfahren hat."_

_("Now the sword must decide. In the midst of peace we have been attacked. Belka united has never been conquered. We will advance with the Great Empress Ceres by our side, as she has with our forefathers.")_

- "Erleuchtet" Berin, Leader of the Belkan Black Sun addressing the people of Belkaland, April, 1913

Belka, with 8.5 million men, faced a similar sized Roman army to her west, and with six million men, faced an equally sized Euro Asian army to her north. And if Birkaine is to enter the war, Belka would be facing nine million men in the east.

Belka's resources were split on two (possibly three) fronts. Even though Belka managed to break through a thin chain of forts along her western border with Rome and Genoa, she was unable to break through Euro Asia's thicker chain of forts as easily.

But Poland's defenses were weaker.

The idea of going into Poland, as a way of cutting both Euro Asia and Russo-Spain off from the rest of the Sotian continent, was General Artur Bader's. But General Bader was sacked by the Kaiser in 1905, and by 1913, his successors had no illusion that there was a swift victory to be had in a two (possibly three) front war.

Indeed, at the start of Belka's war, there was an air of pessimism, desperation, improvisation.

General Markus Rosenberg, Belka's commander, knew the uncertainties.

"_I will do what I can. Personally, I believe that we are not superior to the Romans nor the Euro Asians, though the National Socialist government says that we are."_

The Belkans went to war, less with a master plan, but more of a recognition that they will have to take the war bit by bit. And the first bits, were Poland and Genoa.

The Belkans knew that both Britannia and Euro Asia guaranteed Polish neutrality. But reckoned that Britannia would come into the war sooner or later, which ever route the Belkans took into either Rome or Euro Asia.

The Poles put their faith in re-enforced concrete forts, armed with Belkan Krupp guns.

The Belkans brought their massive siege guns, the big Berthas, named after Krupp's daughter, to smash them.

"_The monster advanced in two parts, pulled by thirty-six horses. The pavement trembled. The crows went mute with consternation with the appearance of this phenomenal apparatus. Then came the frightful explosion. The crowd was flung back, the earth shook like an earthquake, and all the windowpanes in the vicinity were shattered."_

- Polish Eyewitness

Colonel Marszalek was in Fort Kaczka, on the receiving end.

Once the thick metal shutters were forced down, the fort, and its fate, was sealed.

"_The ventilation system has failed. The chimney for the generator has been blocked. The fort is also filling with concrete dust. The mens' chests heave to get air...They're suffocating. They don't look like humans anymore. Their features distorted with agony and hate." _

- Colonel Marszalek, Fort Commander

A Belkan shell had hit the magazine, bringing down the six foot thick concrete roof, crushing 250 soldiers to death. The survivors were horrifically burnt.

By the 4th of May, 1913, all the forts along the Przemysł Line had fallen.

But Poland's war was only beginning.

Belkans claimed that Polish civilian snipers were firing at them from garret windows and rooftops. In fact all the shots came from either retreating Euro Asian and Polish soldiers, or from paranoid Belkan troops shooting at each other.

Nevertheless, General Markus Rosenberg issued a warning to the people of Poland,

"_Anybody who in any form participates without authorization, will be regarded as a partisan, and be shot on the spot."_

Lurid stories filtered back to raw Belkan troops leaving for the Roman and Polish fronts, heightening their sense of paranoia.

"_At all training sessions, we are told of the nastiness of both the Euro Asians and Romans, that the Romans have our wounded get their eyes gouged out, their noses and ears cut-off. Even worse in the case of the Euro Asians, in which we are told that Belkan prisoners are bayoneted, even disemboweled. We're given to understand that we are to act without mercy."_

- Diary of a Belkan Soldier

The pressure to maintain a speedy advance through hostile population lead to atrocities. These were not just the impetuous actions of frightened troops. They became part of a systematic plan: To terrorize and demoralize the enemy.

"_We've been ordered to kill everyone, and wipe off the map the entirety of southern Poland. It is a tremendously honorable task, and we'll be famous forever."_

Kurt Rasch, Belkan Soldier - letter to his parents

The Polish town of Przemysł, on the 10th of May, 1913. Euro Asian troops kept up a storm of fire at the advancing Belkans from across the river Bolek.

The Belkans rounded up civilians, including Samuel Szczepanski, for a special task.

"_We are forced to advance, acting as a shield for the Belkans, who follow behind us, but they fall. Mowed down by Euro Asian bullets. One of them charges at us like a man possessed, and only stops when his bayonet gone right through a poor man's head, who leaves behind a widow and three orphans."_

After the Euro Asians withdrew from the town, the Belkans were convinced that Polish snipers were active. So they torched the town.

They held hostages like Wisław Żuraw, captive in the church overnight. Then escorted them down the road in the morning.

"_The soldier up on carts beat us brutally. The priests in particular were badly treated. Jokes, swearing, blows."_

- Wisław Żuraw

Nearly four hundred men, women, and children, among them, the priest, were herded into the main square by the riverbank. A Belkan firing squad was waiting for them. A whistle blew, and the shooting began.

"_There was total chaos among the crowd. Some fell dead; others pushed blindly. I found myself on the ground, the tide moving above me... I was suffocating. I was hit by two bullets in the kidneys, I felt their holes drill into me."_

"_Aureliusz Kozlow fell on top of me; dead. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get out from under the pile of corpses. I was forced to cut the head off of one the townsfolk, who was already dead. I saw it. The head separated from the trunk."_

- Wisław Żuraw, Przemysł massacre survivor

"_The ultimate cruelty was when the soldiers checked the bodies one-by-one. Any still alive, they bayoneted violently, then threw them into the Bolek."_

- Olek Pasternack

Some of the accused townsfolk remarkably survived the Belkan bullets.

A total of six and a half thousand Polish civilians, including women and children, were killed in the first month of the war. Most notably in the Przemysł massacre.

A hundred-eighty thousand Polish refugees crossed the borders to Euro Asia, the Scandinavian Unions, and Prussia.

The stories of Belkan atrocities to Poland, provided ideal propaganda to rally public opinion behind the war.

The Barbaric Bosch was born...

But what drove this nation, who's soldiers massacred women and children, raised towns to the ground, and even shot priests?

The truth of the matter, lied with the Belkan National Socialist Party, known as the Black Sun Party, lead by both a cult and the Belkan military. They viewed the Poles, as well as other minorities like the Romans and the Darcsen people, as racially inferior, and in so conditioned their soldiers to believe that way. This conditioning lead to the series of atrocities in Poland, Genoa, and Rome.

Polish and Euro Asian forces in the Polish theatre of war, and the Romans in the Roman theatre, bore the brunt of the Belkan onslaught. The Romans were soon joined by Britannic and Ameri troops.

In all, a hundred thousand men of the Britannic Expeditionary Force arrived in Rome in the early weeks of their involvement in the war.

On the 12th of May, 1913, Britannic and Ameri troops moved into position alongside the Roman Legions at the town of Lorenzi. And the Euro Asians and Poles dug in to make their stand at the Polish town of Łódź, 350 miles south of Poland's capital, Warsaw.

Two days later, at Lorenzi, the Britannians, with seventy thousand men, were hit by a Belkan force, four times their size.

"_I focused the telescope and saw a number of little gray figures; more and more were appearing. Women started to wail and rushed for home, along with the men, while children, torn by curiosity, lagged behind to see. In a few seconds, all these civilians were fleeing along the roads."_

- Memoirs of Philip Harper, Roman interpreter with the Britannians

The Allies in the Roman theatre started an epic retreat to the west, just ahead of the Belkan tidal wave.

The war in both Poland and Rome did not begin in the trenches. These early months were mobile; fast; dangerous. In the first four weeks, the Belkan Heer (Army) lost over half a million men killed, wounded, and missing, in both the Polish and Roman fronts.

The Roman front was constantly shifting, giving men no time to dig in. There was no place to hide in fields swept by machine guns and rapid-firing artillery.

"_Rome has just been the object of a violent and premeditated attack. She will be defended heroically by all her legions. Nothing will break their sacred union. Once again, she stands before the universe with liberty, justice, and reason on her side."_

- Emperor Claudius Tiberius Augustus, 1913

At the start of the war, the Roman Emperor appealed to all of Rome for national unity. By the 15th of July, the Belkans had occupied half the country, including the whole of the Roman nation of Genoa, and occupied two tenths of eastern Amerique, and were only 40 miles from the Roman capital city of Roma; the sacred union was starting to crack. Trenches were dug; sandbags filled; barricades erected.

The fate of the city, as well as the Roman Empire as a whole, would be decided at the river Enzo. Fought along a three hundred mile front, it was a battle that Rome had to win.

But although the Belkans had their enemy's capital almost in sight, their advance was outstripping supply lines. There were very few lorries in 1913, horses pulled the guns and wagons. General Gunter Rosenberg, Markus' younger brother, grew alarmed.

"_We barely have any horses left in the Heer which can take another step. We don't want to fool ourselves. We've had successes, but we're not victorious yet. Victory means the annihilation of enemy resistance. But where are all the Roman prisoners and guns that should've been captured? The Romans retreated in a disciplined manner according to a plan, at the most difficult time."_

The Belkan left wing was sweeping down towards Roma. The Romans had detached reserve troops from the west by rail towards Roma to attack the Belkans on their left flank. The Allies now outnumbered the Belkans, and chose their moment to strike.

As the Belkans neared Roma, a dangerous gap opened up between their first and second armies. The Britannic expeditionary force would be driven in like a wedge.

"_To the Romans, it is their own home and it makes them mad. We and the Ameri somehow fight on with no increased animosity. But the Romans really are giving everything, and it makes one wonder if people back home realized what the advance of an invading army in a country means."_

- Captain Carl Davison, Britannian Army – letter to his family

On the eve of battle, the Romans and Ameri commanders General Tibertius, and Marshal Patrick Maçon, addressed their officers together.

"_When a battle in which the nation's salvation depends, we cannot look back! We must make every effort to attack and repel the enemy! Troops who can no longer advance must, at all costs, hold the captured ground, and die rather than retreat!"_

- General Tibertius

The Enzo would consign the set piece battle fought on a single field in a day to history. It was on the cusp between old warfare and new.

Around Roma, great armies wheeled and maneuvered as they had done for centuries. But to the east and north, the Romans and Ameri dug trenches to defend their positions, as the Euro Asians and Poles have been doing two months prior in the Polish theatre. Here, just like Poland, the battle lines would become static.

The Battle of the Enzo began on the 24th of July, 1913...

"_The fighting has begun. Roman shells explode incessantly in front of us. We seek shelter in a sunken lane. Stomachs loudly remind us of our hunger. Constant shelling makes it impossible for us to reach our confection apple. Some block their ears so as to not lose their nerve with the incessant machine gun fire. Our ranks are decimated; we cannot hold this position much longer."_

- Diary of Siegward Hoover, Belkan officer

"_Pieces of shrapnel whistle past me. I felt I've been hit. My knee was giving way as I walked. I wasn't sure what had happened. I stopped and pushed my finger through a hole in my trousers. My finger kept on going into my leg."_

- A Belkan soldier's letter

"_We turn towards the gunfire that rattles out to our right, where the shrapnel still rains down. The houses are burning. I hear from both sides, 'Its our own guns shooting at us!'. I stick very close to the ground, face against the earth."_

- Diary of Gaëtan Belrose, Ameri Officer

For all its modernity, there were elements of the battle that the 19th Century Ameri emperor, Napoleon would've recognized: Cavalry, armed with lances played an active role. No one walked in helmets. And some soldiers uniforms owed more to the parade ground, than to the needs of camouflage; they were easy targets in the early months of the war.

"_My rifle went to my shoulder; two Romans fell. I fired again...Nothing! My magazine was empty. I reached for my bayonet, I expected to be killed by a bullet any second. But then, the rest of my men burst through the undergrowth and the enemy vanished."_

- Memoirs of Valentin Lafrentz, Belkan Officer

The Belkans were in a shade of field gray. But the Britannians were even more difficult to spot, as another Belkan enviously noted,

"_The color of the Britannian's clothing is much more suited to the terrain than ours. Its a sort of browny-green, a really dirty color. This really is an advantage. Although, we're still going to win."_

With men dug in along so vast a front, aerial observation became vital. Balloons and planes gathered crucial information; they also begun to take on a more active role.

"_A Roman plane suddenly appears. It turns and drops something; the air fills with a strange whistling followed by a violent explosion. It's dropped a bomb! Seven horses killed, three men lost. For us, this is something completely new. None of us know how to defend ourselves from this monster of the skies."_

- Diary of Erik Krauß, Belkan Officer

Belkan reconnaissance planes monitor the worsening situation at the Enzo. Pilots' reports went to Adalbert Stieber Second Army Headquarters. Hand-written reports revealed the Allies' steady advance into the lethal gap between his men, and the first army.

On the 25th of July, 1913, Stieber ordered his forces to retreat.

"_We continued to fall back, passing through Roman villages. In the faces of the inhabitants, we saw scorn and derringend. The women leaned out of their windows and thumbed their noses and sneered at us. To them, we were the defeated army."_

- A Belkan soldier's letter

The Romans referred to the battle as "Mars' Blessing on the Enzo". Rome had been saved but at the cost of a quarter of a million casualties; the same losses as the Belkans. No future battle in the Roman Front would average so many casualties per day.

Abel Patenaude, an Ameri ambulance driver, was in the thick of the battle.

"_We're surrounded by dead bodies, thousands piled one on top of the other. We've gotten used to the shelling now; we don't even look up. The whole area has been devastated; the local people, gone."_

Thirty-three Belkan generals were quietly sacked (and presumably shot). Gunter Rosenberg was replaced by General Christian Duerr after a tactful pause. The Belkan people were never told the truth about both the Battle of the Enzo, and the Battle of Łódź. In a sense, the Belkans lost the First Rostillian War at those two battles, never again having the chance they had at Łódź and the Enzo to win a resounding victory against the Entente.

Belka was now committed to a long war, and she didn't have the resources for it. In August of 1913, Duerr ordered his troops to fall back to higher ground, and dig in.

Unable to break through, the Romans, Ameri, and Britannians in the Roman theatre; and the Euro Asians and Poles in the Polish theatre; had no choice but to dig in as well.

The pattern for the two fronts were now set; with its line of trenches stretching from the oceans to Austria; a combined one thousand mile front of mud and horror that would be home to the living and the dead, for over four years.

Twenty-seven year old Britannian soldier, Hartley Hamm, wrote home to his mother,

"_The situation has changed here. I have parapets with a dead man inside the trench. The Belkan trench is only several hundred yards away. The weather is perfectly vile."_

And beyond 'No-man's-land'; beyond the Belkan lines, over a eleven million Roman, Genoan, and Polish men, women, and children were learning to adapt to their changed lives; as civilians under Belkan occupation.

"_Tuesday... Cruel Tuesday... The Belkan troops ride past my window, I then hear a guttural order, 'P__lündern alles!'. __Soon the town is filled with Bosch, the beasts, the swines. They confiscate all weapons and demand a quarter of a million Z__loties in gold."_

The extraordinary diary of a ten year old Polish schoolboy titled, "Journal of the Polish-Bosch War". Manfred Salomon, was given a diary by his parents to keep him busy during the summer holidays. It became a unique record of the occupation.

What Manfred had seen when the Belkans marched into his hometown, was forced requisitioning.

At the outset, the Belkan Black Sun Party adopted a policy of state intervention for war production. In peacetime, Belka imported raw materials from their Africanus colonies, but they knew that the Entente would impose a blockade. So the Belkan industrialists drew up plans to ensure the most effective use of what materials Belka had.

But after a few weeks of war, Belka had most of Poland's, Genoa's, and Rome's industrial and mineral resources at her disposal. These were then taken back to Belka; millions of tons of raw materials, plant, and food stuffs.

But the asset stripping wasn't limited to government. The Belkan Heer was ordered to live off the occupied territories; what the soldiers wanted, they took.

"_Moved on towards Lublin. The inhabitants were pensioners. Our boys found a stash of beer and eggs; we helped ourselves. In the meantime, the church was shot to bits; and not a single house was spared."_

- Diary of Sergeant Achim Lawrenz, Belkan Heer

"_They have taken, rather stolen from us, straw, copper, oats, and the belongings of over eight million people. They have looted the cellars, the empty houses, the walnut trees, the telegraph poles, and the livestock."_

- Diary of Manfred Salomon

One doctor in Opoie, pleaded with the Belkans.

"_My patient Mrs. Slaski is eighty-six years old. She is in a state of great weakness, and serious malnutrition; which makes it absolutely necessary for her to keep her matress."_

It wasn't just material loss. The Belkans rounded up thousands of teenage boys and girls, for forced labor.

"_The last three weeks, we have spent in the most terrible anguish and moral torture for a mother's heart. At three in the morning, these Belkan heroes go out in a military band, their machine guns and bayonets fixed, to hunt down women and children to take them away. God know's where...Or why."_

- Letter from the wife of a Opoie merchant

Manfred's brother got a job at the railway station.

"_Czcibor is unloading wagons of animal carcasses; already green and covered in pieces of rotten flesh; crawling with vermin. He has to touch these stinking dead animals with his bare hands."_

Occupied Rome and Poland were run like a military state. Clocks were set to Belkan time; new identity papers issued.

"_The Belkans generally made us parade at five in the morning. One night however, the whole commune was called out at one in the morning. An old man at ninety-three asked to be allowed to stay in bed. But the troops made fun of him, pushed him out of his home, and said that, 'Fresh air was good for the dying.'"_

- Roman doctor's account

Ordinary people had stark choices to make about how to deal with the occupation. There was some resistance against the Belkans; mostly passive.

The Belkans rounded up underground leaders, then posted notices of their execution.

And they used another method of civil obedience; they took hostages, including Manfred Salomon's father.

"_The hour is near; the last meal together, the goodbyes, the hugs. I want to cry. Father walks to the station with just us boys. I bite my lip and feel my eyes tightening. Father says, 'I love you. Farewell, remember me.' And then he kissed us. Every night I say a prayer to my father and the other hostages."_

- Diary of Manfred Salomon

Civilian men, women, and children were packed into cattle wagons, sent to concentration camps as hostages and forced laborers; several thousand Roman, Genoan, and Poles.

"_The rounding up of civilians by the enemy has been tragic. The weaker, because they were the most harmless, were detained without the understanding of the reason for their arrest, without time to collect any belongings, suddenly considered as criminals; then taken to concentration camps to ensure security in the occupied areas. These civilians became nothing more than the simple pawns of their captors."_

- Red Cross Committee, General Report 1921

A doctor's daughter from Opoie learned what her father was suffering.

"_Papa was locked up for five days for refusing to assist an operation carried out by a Bosch. All food packages are opened and classified; the prisoners come each day to collect their provisions; but there is only one container. Milk, fish, fruit; all tipped into one bucket, because the Belkans use the tins to make grenades."_

Far from being broken by the Belkans during the occupation, Manfred Salomon was politicized by it.

"_There's hardly any bread; the swines will leave us to die of hunger. Too bad. We are Poles, and if we have to die, we shall die; but the Allies will be victorious."_

* * *

In the next episode of the First Rostillian War, global war rocks empires, as the Belkan and Beusuan navies beat the Britannic Royal Navy in the Adrianic Ocean, and maverick armies rampage through Africanus.

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******If you have any reviews, be sure to leave some. Happy Holidays everyone!**


	3. Global War (1913 - 1916)

**Hey guys. This is the first chapter I've made for 2013, so cheers!**

**Also, there might be some ideologically sensitive material in this chapter. But be aware that this takes place in the early 1900's, so ideologically, it was a different time for us. It was also a different time for Rostil, the Nationstates world/region that this story takes place in.**

**So without furthur ado. Here's Episode 3.**

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**The First Rostillian War**

* * *

From the start of the First Rostillian War, both Beusuandille and Belka seized on Britannia's greatest weakness: Her vast empire; hard to defend; fatal to lose.

The gamble was that Britannia would risk everything to protect it; even victory on the Roman Front.

War for Sotia, meant war for the World.

* * *

**Episode Three**

**Global War**

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It was both Beusuandille and Belka's idea to take the war beyond Sotia, but it wasn't in any bid for expansion or world domination. Their aim was to take the pressure off their armies in Sotia, by attacking the Grand Britannian Empire, hoping to divert Britannia's ships, troops, and resources to defend her distant colonies.

Britannia also had no thought of a bigger empire...She just didn't want to lose the one she had.

So while both Beusuandille and Belka wanted to open up the war around the globe, Britannia was desperate to close it down.

Skylar Winston, Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defense, realized the Empire was Britannia's Achilles Heel, and warned against letting both Beusuandille and Belka use it to distract Britannia from her war effort.

"_Forces must not be diverted to minor operations to the prejudice of concentration in the main theatre, and the safety of the trade routes."_

Fifteen years before, both Beusuandille and Belka proclaimed themselves as Empire Builders. The Belkan Kaiser, Otto von Damon XI, had taken his country into the 20th Century as an Admiral, creating a global Belkan Navy, known as the Kaiserliche Marine.

Weltpolitik was the big idea of both von Damon XI and the Military. A policy of overseas imperialism; the brainchild of the Kaiser's Foreign Secretary, Lutz Wegener.

_"The days when Belkans left the Earth to one neighbor, proceed to another, and kept only the heavens for themselves, are over. We don't want to put anyone in the shade. But we too, demand our Place in the Sun."_

Beusuandille had had an empire for the past two hundred years. Belka on the other hand, had came late to the game of empires. But by 1900, they both had the following colonies: Beusuan Southwest Africanus, Belkan Southwest Africanus, Beusuan Southeast Africanus, Belkan East Africanus -now known as St. Alyssia-, and Beusuan Northeast Africanus -now Carthage-.

Beusuandille's flag also flew over patches in the Adrianic Ocean. New Guinea, the Barbary Islands, and Micronesia.

Beusuandille had a vital toe-hold in China; at Tsingtao; where she recalled her ships and had wireless stations.

Beusuan Admiral Cyril Patenaude and Belkan Grand Admiral Gunter Kneller, saw this as just the start.

"_We are now standing only at the beginning of a new division of the globe."_

- Grand Admiral Gunter Kneller

Belka alarmed the world with her imperial tub thumping. She eyed up Californian-controlled Hawaii, and even considered conquering the Natornic Cultures as well.

But the boldest of all the Belkan Military's schemes in the early 20th Century, was Operational Plan 9.

"_The East Coast is the heart of the Californian Republic and this is where she is most vulnerable. New York would panic at the prospect of bombardment. By hitting her here, we can force California to negotiate."_

- Urs Achterberg - War planner, Belkan Kaiserliche Marine Admiralty Staff

Belka's secret plans for 1903; to attack the Eastern Seaboard of California with sixty ships and a 100,000 men, to shell Manhattan and capture Boston.

The outlandish scheme was driven by the Belkan Military's resentment of California's growing power in the Adrianic Ocean. Their generals believed in a militarist and pure state, and increasingly hated what the West stood for.

"_Service to mammon, greed, self-indulgence, land grabbing, lying, treachery...and not least, murder."_

- Urs Achterberg - War planner, Belkan Kaiserliche Marine Admiralty Staff

The Belkan Military generals thought that Capitalism was vulnerable; that a strong enough attack on its international systems of trade, credit, and insurance, could bring the edifice tumbling down.

Kaiser von Damon XI had the final say, however, and ordered Operational Plan 9 to be dropped, but the Belkan Military's hostility toward capitalist empires and nations, such as California and Euro Asia, continued. Ironically, the Kaiser's order to drop said plan, as well as drop all the other schemes that the Military's generals planned, brought about a large amount of tension between the Kaiser and the Military.

By 1910, Belka traded in Weltpolitik for a more realistic policy. Now, the Kaiser wanted to focus more of his political power to helping the people. But the Military adapted this new policy to their own goals: To prepare for a Sotian war, not a global war; and the Belkan Heer (Army) got a secret budget increase, instead of the Kaiserliche Marine, which would've been more obvious.

Eventually, the von Damon XI found out about the secret budget increases, and ordered the Generals to stop the secret funding. However, when an archeological team found an ancient Mu warship, a cult, under the Black Sun's banner was formed.

This was just what the Generals needed to throw the Kaiser out. On January 12, 1911, the Generals, with the support of the cult, launched a coup d'état and overthrew von Damon XI, and installed, not only the cult's leaders, but themselves as well, as the absolute leaders of Belka, officially re-naming the nation as the Belkan Nationalist Empire.

The Belkan Kaiser and the rest of the monarchy fled to Russo-Spain.

The first day of war found Belka's high-seas fleet trapped by the navies of Britannia, Amerique, Rome, and Euro Asia in the northern end of the Sea of Ceres, with the addition of the Aurick Straits mined.

And all that both the Belkan Kaiserliche Marine and the Beusuan Navy had to threaten the entire Grand Britannian Empire was a combined force of eighteen cruisers linked by wireless network to Dinsmark and Selene respectively.

There was the Belkan KMV _Lumen_ and Beusuan BMS _Labelle_ off east Africanus.

The Belkan KMV _Wilhelm,_ KMV _Sudentor_, and the Beusuan BMS _Nazaire_, and BMS _Séverin_ in the central Sea of Ceres, near the Saracen coast.

The Belkan KMV _Angfang,_ KMV _Stier_, KMV _Tauberg_, and KMV _Gau_ off San Cristobel.

The Beusuan BMS _Boniface_, BMS _Travere_, and BMS _Ruben_ stationed at Port Royal Island, which was captured from the Euro Asians early in the war.

The Belkan KMV _Schayne_ off the southern coast of Californian-controlled Alaska.

But the greatest concentration of Belkan and Beusuan cruisers were Belkan Admiral Eduard Simon's and Admiral Juste Masson's West Adrianic Squadrons, both based in Beusuan-controlled Tsingtao, China.

Tsingtao gave both Beusuandille and Belka a huge area of operations; across the South Han Sea, as well as into the Adrianic. Seizing it would cut the squadrons' lifeline.

Britannia saw the urgency, but lacked the resources. So, two days into her involvement in the war, she turned to her ally, the White Sun.

The White Sun was a growing power; Britannia's call for naval help, suited her ambitions perfectly.

Together, Britannia and the White Sun would capture Tsingtao; vital Beusuan base; and the Emperor's pride and joy.

"_It would shame me more to surrender Tsingtao to the White Sun, than Selene to the Russo-Spanish and Euro Asians."_

- Emperor of Beusuandille

On the 4th of May, 1913, 60,000 White Sun troops landed up the coast, violating China's neutrality. They met up with two thousand Britannians, and together closed in on the Beusuan garrison of four and a half thousand.

"_It's unbearable. All we can do is sit and wait for this bunch of monkeys to arrive. Every day, they get closer. No one expects to get home in once piece. No hope of reinforcements; the noose around our necks is getting tighter and tighter."_

Diary of Salomon David - Beusuan Soldier in Tsingtao

For a solid week, the White Sun battered Tsingtao and on the 11th of May, they entered the town in triumph.

Some Beusuans sneered at the token Britannic force, for getting the White Sun to do their dirty work.

"_The 'Brave Britannians.' They played no part in the capture of Tsingtao, but they sure as hell did join in the victory parade. As they went by, we Beusuans were ordered to turn our backs on them. The Britannians complained to the Sunese commander, but he simply said, "Well, we can't repeat the whole procession because of that."_

- Diary of a Beusuan Soldier in Tsingtao

The capture of Tsingtao gave the White Sun a launch pad to pursue her empire building. Within weeks, she demanded territory and trading rights from China. The White Sun was quick to seize control of Beusuandille's Micronesian possessions to the north of the Equator; Britannic Australia and New Zealand were quick to steal those to the south, with the exception of New Guinea and the Barbary Islands, as New Guinea would be taken by Britannia later, and the Barbary Islands would succumb to starvation and disease due to the cutting of trade between Tsingtao and the Barbary Islands themselves.

Much to California's frustration, Britannia empowered the White Sun in the Adrianic. Key stage in a process that would lead, less than a quarter of a century later, to the White Sun's attack on Hawaii.

Beusuandille's loss at Tsingtao -far from neutralizing Masson's and Simon's squadrons-, ensured that their destructive power would be felt throughout the globe.

The best Beusuan and Belkan cruiser commanders, like Masson and Simon respectively, were fearless mavericks, for whom the war turned into heroes. Superb sailors, with the instincts of pirates.

The Beusuan Monarchy and the Belkan Black Sun Party gave them full authority to make their own decisions in wartime.

"_The heavy responsibility of the officer in command, will be increased by the isolated position of his ship, but he must not show one moment of weakness. Above all, the officer must bear in mind that his chief duty is to damage the enemy as severely as possible."_

- "Erleuchtet" Head Member of the Black Sun Party

Masson and Simon split their combined squadron. The light cruiser BMS _Larue_, under the command of Captain Samuel Thayer, set a course west, around the Middle East, toward Africanus. Masson on the BMS _Antonin_, and Simon on the KMV _Huffnung_, led the rest of this combined squadron east across the Adrianic.

"_I'm quite homeless. Not knowing if I can reach Beusuandille, I must plow the seas of the world, doing as much mischief as I can."_

- Journal entry of Captain Samuel Thayer of the BMS _Larue_

At the Admiralty in Londinium, Winston Churchill fretted about where both Simon and Masson would show up next.

"_The vastness of the Adrianic, and its multitude of islands, offered them their shelter. And once they vanished, who should say where either of them would reappear. They are cut flies and fast; fare to sea, yet bound to die. But, so much as they live, all our enterprises lay under the shadow of a serious danger of attack."_

Both Masson and Simon had a common, constant worry: Cruisers needed coal every eight or nine days, or they'd be dead in the water. Masson's and Simon's combined squadron made for neutral Leasath, where they had coal waiting for them.

On the 20th of June, 1913, the combined squadron ran into a Britannian fleet two hundred miles off the coast of Dystara.

The Britannian commander was Sir Dacre Fitzroy, under orders from Londinium.

"_It appears that Masson and Simon's squadrons are working their way across to Leasath. Be prepared to meet them in company."_

Fitzroy had two ships that could outgun Masson and Simon's fleet, but they were slow and would've been left behind. Now Fitzroy raced towards enemy ships, better armed than his. He had ignored his own rule of thumb.

"_A naval officer should never let his boat go faster than his brain."_

- Fitzroy's rule of thumb

"_I and Masson immediately ordered the _Huffunug_ and the _Antonin_ to go full steam ahead, and within fifteen minutes, I was racing against heavy seas at twenty knots and came to line parallel with the Britannians."_

- Admiral Eduard Simon

Fitzroy's ships where no match for Masson and Simon's.

"Good Hope _and _Monworth_ were obviously in distress. _Monworth_ veered off to starboard, burning furiously. There was a terrible explosion on _Good Hope_ aft of her aft funnel. The gust of flames reached a height of over two hundred feet, lighting up a cloud of debris that was flung still higher in the air._"

- Britannian Naval Officer – HMS _Glasgow_

Sixteen hundred Britannic sailors were lost. It was Britannia's worst naval defeat in over 250 years. The global war was going both Beusuandille's and Belka's way.

"_It is only when you get to see and realize what Azhadstan is, that she is the strength and greatness of Britannia. It is only then, that you may feel every nerve a man may strain; every energy he may put forward, cannot be devoted to a nobler purpose than to keep a tight lid on the cords that hold Azhadstan to ourselves."_

- George Nathaniel Curzon, MP – speaking in 1889

Britannia's and Amerique's empires and trading networks were the single biggest resources they brought to the war. And Azhadstan and Nubia were at the heart of it. The cords were never tighter; all the more reason for Beusuandille and Belka to want them cut.

These slender lines on a map were now the focus of intense study by the Britannian, Ameri, Beusuan, and Belkan admiralties, and in the chart rooms of warships. Minds pondered on how to protect them; how to sever them.

And one of the sharpest minds was on the bridge of the Beusuan cruiser _Larue_. A month after she left Admiral Masson and Admiral Simon's combined squadron, Captain Samuel Thayer steered her into toward Azhadstan and Nubia.

"_He had an indescribable power over the entire crew. He never gave orders, he just expressed a wish. From the moment he took command of the ship, he never left the bridge again. This is where he stood, slept, sat, studied the maps. This is where he wanted to be, stand or fall."_

- Memoirs of a _Larue_ crew member

The _Larue_ sometimes rigged a dummy funnel, to look like a Britannic cruiser.

"_A large steamer appeared dead ahead, and thinking we were a Britannic Man-Of-War, was so overjoyed at our presence, that she hoisted a huge Ameri flag. I'd like to have seen the look on her captain's face when we hoisted our flag, and invited him most graciously to tarry with us a while."_

- Report of Ernest Laurent, officer on the _Larue_

Captain Thayer became famous for taking all passengers and crew safely onto the _Larue_, before sinking their ship.

"_We always allowed them time to collect and take with them their personal possessions, and they usually devoted most this time to make certain that their precious supply of wine was not wasted on the fishes."_

Thayer regularly released his grateful captives.

Such was the _Larue_'s impact, that the Britannic Admiralty later drew up a chart to track her movements.

Thayer even had the audacity to steam into the Azhad port of Alexandria, as a crew member recorded in his diary.

"_15th of June, 1913, 9:30 PM_

_The _Larue_ sneaks closer, and fires 125 shots. Some hit boats in the harbor; huge columns of fire rise from the oil tanks. The coastal defenses open fire, but they all fall short._

_16th of June._

_We are now one hundred miles away; we can still see the fires of Alexandria."_

In the city of Londinium, freight rates and shipping insurance rocketed. At one point, the entire Britannic Trade Fleet in Azhadstan was kept in harbor, rather than fall prey to Captain Thayer. Beusuandille's and Belka's rogue cruisers were starting to harm the war efforts of both Britannia and Amerique.

"_Three transports are delayed in Azhadstan through fear of _Larue_. This involves delay of artillery and cavalry. The Cabinet took a strong view; the extermination of these pests is a most important subject."_

- Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty

While the _Larue_ ran the Britannic ragged to the south of Azhadstan and Nubia; twenty-five Royal Navy warships hunted the cruisers KMV _Lumen_ and BMS _Labelle_, off the east coast of Beusuandille's East Africanus colony. The two ships raided the Mauretanian town of Commonwealth, and sunk a Britannic light cruiser, from their secret hideout in the Rafigi Delta.

The frustrated Britannians decided to strangle all the _Lumen_ and _Labelle_'s possible bases, starting with the port of Tanga.

On the 2nd of August, 1913, the Britannians steamed into the Bay of Tanga. In the global war, imperial powers got others to do their fighting. The Britannians troops were Azhadstani.

Their arrival was watched by Thomas Planton, a sixteen year old African fighting for the Beusuans.

"_The approaching Britannic ships had all their lights blazing and were making no attempt to conceal their presence. We were in position with machine guns, waiting in ambush for them and many of them were killed when they started to come ashore. A lot of them were killed before they even got out of the water."_

Thomas Planton was one of two and a half thousand men under Beusuan commander Lt. Colonel Gustave Béringer. The Britannians thought taking Tanga would be a pushover; but they reckoned without without Béringer. He was a professional Beusuan soldier; tough as nails; charismatic.

"_Béringer was a remarkable soldier, but stubborn and single-minded to a degree I unfortunately never experienced before. His most remarkable quality was the reckless energy in which he pursued his goals. This was often covered up by his most persuasive charm, which he can switch on if he wanted to."_

- Adrian Samson, Governor of Beusuan Southeast Africanus.

On the ship to Africanus, Béringer met Pascaline Mortange, who would later write out of Africanus; Béringer clearly turned on the charm for her.

"_A Beusuan officer, Béringer, has been such a friend to me. You should hear how they talk about him out here, as the greatest genius of the age."_

Despite loosing men during the landing, the Britannians now threatened Tanga. Governor Samson ordered Béringer to evacuate the town, rather than see it destroyed. But Béringer had come to Africanus to fight.

"_It was crucial to prevent the Britannians from gaining a foothold in Tanga, thus giving them a base to advance north. I couldn't let the Governor's order to spare Tanga take precedence over this priority."_

Béringer surveyed the Britannic positions himself on his bicycle. He also called in reinforcements; three companies of Beusuan troops came by rail to Tanga. Here, on the 4th of August, 1913, they met the Britannic Azhadstani soldiers; raw and poorly trained.

Britannian Intelligence officer, Gib Bringham, watched the ensuing route.

"_Half the 13th Regiment turned at once into the rabble and bolted. I could not believe my eyes; they were all jabbering like monkeys and clearly not for it at any price."_

"_Everyone in the dense forest, friend and foe, was mixed up, shouting in all sorts of languages. The enemy ran off in wild disorder, and our machine guns mowed down whole companies down to the last man."_

- Lt. Colonel Gustave Béringer

After two days of fighting, the Britannians sent Gib Bringham to Béringer field headquarters at a Beusuan hospital, to negotiate a surrender.

"_The Beusuans were kindness itself and gave me a most splendid breakfast, which I sorely needed. We discussed the fight as if it had been a football match. It seems so odd that I should be having a meal today with people I was trying to kill yesterday; it seems so wrong. And it makes me wonder if this really was war, or whether if we made a ghastly mistake. The Beusuan officers were all hard-looking; keen and fit. They treated this war as some new form of sport."_

The Britannians failed to take Tanga, and suffered seven hundred casualties; Béringer just sixty-five. The Beusuans hailed him as a hero.

Further east, to the southeast of Nubia, Thayer was still causing havoc. He sunk three warships, and captured twenty-six merchant ships.

On the 9th of August, 1913, the _Larue_ anchored off the western tip of Nubia to destroy the Ameri wireless stations there. But the radio operator spotted the _Larue_'s bogus fourth funnel, and radioed for help. The Australian cruiser _Sydney_, put an end to the _Larue_'s maverick career.

Captain Thayer was taken prisoner. He and the other survivors were well looked after.

"_Dear loved ones, I am well and healthy. The Britannians are very friendly; they took loads of photos of us, and asked for our addresses to send us the snaps. Yours, Cyrille."_

- Cyrille Tremble, writing to his family

Now, Admirals Masson and Simon's luck had also run out. Britannia took the risk by dispatching her latest battlecruisers from the crucial northern Ceres Sea blockade, to deal with them.

On the 8th of September, 1913, Belkan commander, Erik Schmeling, sighted the Britannic ships' huge masts, as they recalled in Puerto Calisto in the Terminus Islands, off Leasath's southeastern tip. He realized both the Beusuans and Belkans were outgunned and outpaced.

"_We choked a little at the neck; our throats contracted and stiffened. And that meant a life or death grapple, or fight ending in honorable death."_

The combined Beusuan and Belkan fleet tried to get away, but the Britannic battlecruisers were too fast. At 1:25 PM, Simon and Masson turned to face them.

But the Britannians were careful to stay out of range of his guns, firing their own from sixteen thousand yards.

At 4:17 PM, the BMS _Antonin_ went down with Masson and all hands, including his only son.

At 6:02 PM the KMV _Huffnung_ sank, with Simon and most of its crew, including Simon's oldest and youngest sons.

"_The sight was one of fearful awe. She turned over and sank with a graceful gliding motion. The sailors clung on till the end, as we saw a party of their men, holding the Belkan ensign as she sank. And so they went down into their watery grave."_

- Diary of Petty Officer Henry Welch, Royal Navy

The Battle of the Terminus Islands marked the end of both Beusuandille's and Belka's cruiser campaign. Their global war would increasingly have to be fought on land. Again, their commanders would stretch slim resources to lead the Britannic Empire a dance.

The nation of Ne'Threl offered a new opportunity for Beusuandille and Belka to harass the Britannic Empire, as Ne'Threll was a stone's throw away across the Sea of Ceres from Britannia's colony of Mauretania. But Belka couldn't spare any men from the Polish and Roman fronts, and Beusuandille was having a manpower shortage due to its own campaign in Russo-Spain; so they turned to Saracen Sieen, their ally since early 1913.

The Saracen 4th Army was stationed in the southern portion of the empire, within range of Ne'Threl. The Saracens agreed to invade Ne'Threl, assigning three thousand troops. They saw it as their chance at their reconquest of their southern lands and the addition of Ne'Threl to their dominion.

"_We marched at night, and only by moonlight. My heart was filled by a deep melancholy, mingled with great hope of success, as the sound of a song is heard, to the accompaniment of soldiers forging on ahead through the endless waste of desert, deeply illuminated by the pale gleam of the waxing moon."_

- Memoirs of Yusuf Teke, Commander, Saracen 4th Army

The Saracens had to transport howitzers, food, and water across the desert, and didn't lose a single man or pound of material in the sands.

In the early hours of the 3rd of December, 1914, the Saracens reached a small village within Ne'Threl's borders. There, the Ne'Threllan Army was lying in wait. The Beusuan colonel who planned the operation, now watched it go horribly wrong.

"_The Ne'Threllans saw us and opened fire on sight. The shots created panic. They then mowed us down with machine gun fire."_

The Saracens found the local area defended by thirty thousand Ne'Threllan troops, dug into defensive positions. The Saracens, not anticipating this much resistance, only concentrated their troops in that one area. The Saracens suffered twenty-five hundred casualties; the survivors retreated across the desert.

The invasion had failed horribly.

In northwestern Africanus, on the 12th of March, 1915, a combined Beusuan and Belkan infantry division landed on the Britannic Protectorate of Asran's northern coast; their motives being to seize Asran's raw materials to fuel their war machine.

15 year old Kwaku Ime, saw the advance of the invading army, and the retreat of the outgunned, outnumbered Asran and Britannic armies.

"_The invaders advanced like a herd of wildebeests on the move. Our troops ran, knowing that they could not stand a chance against them; the ones who tried to fight were cut down by rifles and these machine guns. Those who survived were stabbed with the invader's bayonets. Why would something like this happen?"_

In Al-Arish, the Britannic adviser to the Asran government, Crispian Symons, knew that the garrisoned Britannic troops and the Asran military reserves wouldn't be able to hold back this invasion alone. So he sent a letter to the Entente for support.

In response, the Britannians, Romans, and Euro Asians sent a combined twenty thousand troops to aid the Asran military. Ne'Threl, knowing that their colony of Hijaz would be threatened if the Beusuans and Belkans overran the Asranis and Britannians, sent six thousand of their colonial troops from Hijaz over to Asran.

The combined Beusuan/Belkan force of twenty thousand, was now outnumbered.

For the next eight months, the Allies and the combined Beusuan/Belkan force slugged it out all over Asran. But the campaign was taking its toll on both sides. And much of the toll was not from bullets. The north Africanus heat was also robbing the troops of their mobility during the summer, as a Euro Asian commander noted.

"_The sun is unbearable; our troops have been collapsing from heat exhaustion. Our water supply is running low too. I don't know how long me and my squad can hold out. I just wish these damn Swans and Bosch leave this country so we can go home already."_

- 1st Lieutenant Avan Hardins, Euro Asian Army, 10th Squad

On the 12th of October, 1915, 1st Lieutenant Hardins got what he wished for. The Beusuans and Belkans, knowing that their position was hopeless, decided to pull out and abandon the operation. The 10th Squad managed to make it through the campaign with only just six casualties. The Allied forces in Asran as a whole, had lost over twelve thousand troops; one quarter of them to the climate.

The attempted invasion and occupation of Asran was a failure. But even before the Beusuans and Belkans pulled out of Asran, the whole of Africanus had become a battleground in Beusuandille's and Belka's global war.

They had five bases of operation: Beusuan Southwest Africanus, Beusuan Southeast Africanus where Béringer was still at large, Belkan East Africanus, Beusuan Northeast Africanus, and Belkan Southwest Africanus with its ports and wireless stations.

Luckily for Britannia, she had a colony right next door; unluckily however, it was the one they could least rely on at the moment.

The Dominion of Mauretania was racially diverse: Blacks, Boers, and Britannian settlers. Just fifteen years before, Britannia had fought a long, bloody war against the Boers; many of them still had little love for Britannia for the time being; their loyalty could not be counted on, as one commander asked Mauretania's Prime Minister, Shelby Huxtable.

"_My men are ready, whom do we fight? The Britannians or the Belkans?"_

But Mauretania was ideally situated to launch an attack on Belkan Southwest Africanus. Britannia's colonial secretary, Duncan Dwerryhouse, took the gamble.

"_If your minister's desire, and feel themselves able to seize such part of Belkan Southwest Africanus, as it will give him command of the wireless stations there, we should feel that this was a great and urgent imperial service."_

Mauretania's government readily agreed because it had imperial ambitions of its own. It wanted to seize Belkan Southwest Africanus for itself.

On the 14th of August, 1915, Mauretanian forces crossed the Orange River into Belkan Southwest. But the Belkans were one jump ahead, as the Mauretanians found out when they paused at a watering hole.

The Mauretanians were beaten; but there was worse to come...

Part of Mauretania now rose up in armed rebellion. Commanding their forces in the northern part of the country, was Merrick Trent. Fearless and uncompromising, Trent had fought a fierce guerrilla campaign against the Britannians in the Boer War; his sympathies lay entirely with Belka.

"_I received a telegram ordering me to take a large commando force into Belkan Southwest Africanus. I was determined not to fight on behalf of the Britannic Empire, and my officers and troops were in full accord with me."_

In September of 1915, Merrick Trent crossed the Orange River into Belkan territory at Scuit Drift, to enlist Belkan support.

Two days later, Trent addressed his troops.

"_Now men, we don't want to be ruled by the Jews and the financiers of Britannia. General Bayers, General Divet, and myself have decided to form an independent South Africanus republic, and have entered an agreement with the governor of Belkan Southwest Africanus. They will provide us with arms, ammunition, and guns. On this step, depends the freedom of the masses of the country."_

Britannia's request for help had brought her dominion to the brink of civil war. In Londinium, Duncan Dwerryhouse feared the break up of the Dominion of Mauretania. He secretly ordered thirty thousand Australian soldiers diverted to the cape to smother the rebellion.

"_Safety of the Dominion is first and paramount consideration. We attach no importance to Belkan Southwest Africanus in comparison."_

The Australians weren't needed; in the fall of 1915, the loyal Mauretanians defeated the Boer rebels, but they never caught Merrick Trent.

By December of 1915, Mauretania cornered the Belkans, forced their surrender, and annexed their colony.

And Britannia had more work for Mauretania; north this time, to deal with Béringer once and for all. Londinium turned to Britannia's Defense Minister to lead the campaign, Camron Thompson. Thompson too fought in the Boer War, but was now passionately pro-Britannian. More a statesman than a soldier, Thompson made an indifferent general of conventional forces; and he was up against Béringer.

Britannic officer, Kiaran Smalls, was now Thompson's intelligence officer.

"_Thompson is quite determined to avoid a stand up fight. He told me he could not afford to return to Mauretania with the name 'The Butcher_'._ If Béringer is clever, and Thompson not clever enough, there's going to be trouble."_

Béringer was clever; at his headquarters at Marshey Railway Station, he thought thoroughly about depriving Britannia of manpower in Sotia, by opening up the war in Africanus.

"_The question was, could we, with our small forces, help our Belkan brethren by preventing considerable enemy numbers from intervening in Sotia, or inflict substantial damage to their armaments and troops? I strongly believe that we could."_

By August of 1916, Béringer had become an expert at his own cat and mouse game.

"_Béringer is slippery and is not going to be caught by maneuver. He knows the country better than we do. I think we in for an expensive hide and seek. Béringer will still be coo-kooing in tropical Aficanus when the cease fire goes. Thompson has cost Britannia many hundreds of lives, and many millions of pounds."_

- Kiaran Smalls, Intelligence officer

Béringer ran his force of up to fifteen thousand soldiers, mostly black, through scrounging and improvisation. No supplies from Beusuandille reached him after March of 1916, but he made a little go a long way, as one of his medical officers noted.

"_When there was no ammunition, Béringer would try to produce his own cartridges. If the men asked for weapons or clothes, they were told, 'take them from the enemy'. Béringer made war at cost price. You would've been justified at displaying this war, with a For Sale sign; cheapest war in the world."_

Camron Thompson had five times the forces Béringer had. But the further he went into Beusuan Southeast Africanus, the more stretched his supply lines. And he reckoned without the killer Tsetse Fly. The life expectancy of his fifty thousand horses was just four weeks.

Torrential rain, mud, dust, and boiling heat, further slowed his progress. Intelligence was sketchy; maps inadequate. Telephone cable often had to be raised to eight meters, to avoid damage by giraffes.

"_This is like warfare of bygone days. We come along where no road had ever been; and probably where white men never trod before. The river is in flood, and we cannot get across. On the other side, the Beusuan patrols are watching us, but the crocodiles hold the peace very successfully."_

- Piet van der Byl, Mauretanian Army

Béringer played with Thompson, refusing to fight, slipping away, luring him deeper into Africanus. As they went, they spread the war's grief and destruction, dragging in more and more of the people of Africanus.

This war was being carried on the backs of black Africans. For the Béringer campaign alone, the Britannians recruited over a million black porters. One in five died from malnutrition and disease; death rates comparable to those in the Roman front.

"_They endure their ordeal quietly; they only have duties, and hardly any rights. They tumbled into the splashing mud with their heavy loads, and were ruthlessly forced to move on and catch up."_

- Doctor Cyrus Keys, Britannian Medical Officer, Beusuan Southeast Africanus

"_Oh the lindy road was dusty, the lindy road was long. But the chap did what the artifs grafed. What he could do not wrong, was the cover on the porter, with his cover on don song. It was 'Come here porter! It was Amerra here, git!' And Amerra didn't grumble, he simply did his bit."_

"_What Thompson saves on the battlefield, he loses in hospital. For it is Africanus and the climate we're really fighting, not the Beusuans."_

- Kiaran Smalls, Intelligence officer

Out of twenty thousand Mauretanians, over half were invalided home by 1917. They were replaced by black troops. Recruitment of blacks soared in East Africanus as well. Over the course of the war, the King's African Rifles rose from three thousand men, to over thirty-five thousand.

"_Think of yourself buried in a hole with only your head and hands outside, holding your rifle, death smelling all over the place. Listen to the sound of exploding bombs, and machine guns. Smoke all over, the vegetation burnt, and of course, deforested. Watch your relatives getting killed, crying out loud, finally dead. These things, we did, experienced and saw."_

Béringer survived the war undefeated, though he returned to Selene with Beusuandille in utter defeat in 1920. The Britannians never caught him, even though they turned it into an African war and set an army on his tail.

But Britannia and Amerique had such reserves in their colonies, that from 1913, they deployed them to Sotia.

Ameri general, Urbain Leclerc, had calculated that Amerique could raise up to three hundred thousand from her empire for Sotia; no one believed him. But in fact, they mobilized double that number.

"_These black troops have precisely those qualities needed in the long struggles of modern war: Endurance, tenacity, the instinct for combat, the absence of nervousness, and an incomparable amount of shock. Not only do they enjoy danger, the life of adventure, but they are also essentially disciplinable."_

"_People started hiding and running away from the camp. There were all kinds of demises, even psychological illness. People didn't know where we were going, or even know why they were fighting. There were rumors that we would never even come back, that we were going to be sold as slaves."_

- Kande Kamara, African soldier in the Ameri Army

Azhadstan provided Britannia with one and three quarter million men in the war. They've been thrown into some of the toughest fighting from the start. One Azhadstani wrote to a friend.

"_The war is a calamity on three worlds, and it has caused me to cross the seas and live here. The cold is so great, that it cannot be described. We have not seen the Sun for four months; thus we are sacrificed. We neither sleep by night nor eat by day. There can never have been such a war before; nor will there ever be again."_

Some men, like Paki Tafadzwa, used to habitual racism of colonial rule, returned home with greater self-esteem.

"_We liked our time in Rome; it was our first experience of living in a society without a canopa. We were different from the other people at home. Our behavior, as we shown the Mauritanians, was something more than expected from. We copied the manners and customs of the Sotians; and not only did we copy, we lived them."_

But it wasn't the same Africanus that Paki Tafadzwa and many others came back to after the war. The empires which carved it up, now turned parts of it into a wasteland, as Beusuan medic, Gervais Langlois, realized.

"_Behind us, we leave destroyed fields, and for the immediate future, starvation. We are no longer the agents of civilization; our path is marked by death, plundering, and deserted villages."_

It would be years before African nationalism took off. But a few had begun the journey. In 1914, Tatenda Emem challenged the basis of the war, and Africanus' place in it. And his words would haunt colonial officials for years to come.

"_Leather rich men, bankers, type of men; storekeepers, farmers, and landlords, go to war and get shot. Instead; the poor Africans, who have nothing to own in this present world, who in death leave a lone line of widows and orphans in utter want, and bad distress. I invited to die for a cause, which is not theirs."_

Beusuandille and Belka fought a remarkable global war; but it had cost them most of their cruisers, their wireless network, and most of their colonies. Yet they forced Britannia and Amerique to call on their empires, and lean on their allies. In the process, these flexed their muscles, and formed empires of their own.

The First Rostillian War saw the last Scramble for Africanus. And the ideals that the Belkan military had so hated: land grabbing, avarice, and capitalism, had in fact been spread wider. For the moment, imperialism looked more successful than it had ever been.

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In the next episode of The First Rostillian War, the call goes out for holy war in the Middle East, the nightmare of Galipoli, and the agony of the Lycian people.

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**Remember to review, everyone.**


	4. Holy War (1913 - 1916)

**Author's note: Just like Episode 3, this episode has ideologically sensitive material, which may not be suitable for some readers.**

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**The First Rostillian War**

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_"Zerdüşt Takipçi, Müslümanlar, İbraniler ve Hindular; imanınız olabilir ne olursa olsun; beni duyuyor bütün iyi şeylerin düşmanı bizim kuzey toplamak Onlar Ahura Mazda eserleri söndürmeye çalışıyorlar;! Druj onları boğmak için, onlar kohort ile Ahriman bizim yollarımız hayatın aşağı getirmek için, gölge ve günaha bize sonsuza atmak senin niyetle tanrılara değil, aynı zamanda ulus için, seslenirim; birlikte evrenin düzenine karşı bu travesti aşağı koymak olabilir!: Rum, Rus-İspanya, Britannia, ve Euro Asya hükümetleri! savaşa gitmek gerekir! "_

_("Followers of Zoroaster, Muslims, Hebrews and Hindus; whatever your faith may be; hear me! The enemies of all good things gather to our north! They seek to extinguish the works of Ahura Mazda; to drown them in Druj; they cohort with Ahriman to bring down our ways of life; to throw us forever into shadow and sin! I call upon you, in your faith to your gods but also to your nation; that we may together put down this travesty against the order of the universe: the governments of Rome, Russo-Spain, Britannia, and Euro Asia! We must go to war!")_

– Tahir Osman addressing the people of Dijhan, Emirate of Sieen, December 13th, 1913

The call goes out for a Holy War. The Beusuans and Belkans hoped that the Saracen Empire would do their bidding. The Entente thought that Saracen Sieen would be a pushover.

However, the war in the Middle East went its own wild way.

* * *

**Episode Four**

**Holy War**

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The Beusuan emperor had been cultivating the Saracen Empire long before the war began. He wore a fez on state visits; and even followed rumors that he had become Zoroaster.

"_The three hundred million Zoroasters, Muslims, Hebrews and Hindus, scattered across the globe, can be reassured that the Beusuan emperor is; and will all times remain their friend."_

Part of Beusuandille's interest in the Saracen Empire, was that they shared a common enemy: The Britannians and Romans. Sieen's northern regions were just across the Sea of Ceres from Rome; and Sieen shared a volatile border with Britannia along the border of Britannia's colony of Azhadstan.

"_Rome and Britannia are the hereditary enemies of the Saracen Empire. And their greatest desire is the possession of Dijhan."_

– Memoirs of Cemal Pasha – Sieen Naval Minister

The Saracen Empire once stretched from the borders of modern day Belka to the peninsula where Ne'Threll now resides. But it lost a third of its territory in a run of disastrous wars.

The Saracen Empire was the "sick man" of Sotia; broke, and on the verge of collapse.

"_The great powers have grasped us by the throat. The government can't pay monthly salaries; all the public services are under the control of privileged foreign capital. It would be very easy for a patriot to go out of his mind."_

– Diary of Faliah Rifiki – Sieen Journalist

But one group of nationalist reformers planned to stop the rotting of their beloved empire; the young Sieen. In 1905, they replaced the Sultan with his brother as a puppet; and started a program of modernization.

They looked for an ally, to ward off predators and bankroll the future.

The ambitious Minister of War favored Beusuandille. At fifty two years old, Anvir Pasha risen through the ranks, married the Sultan's niece, and lived in splendor in Dijhan.

Anvir Pasha had been military attache in Selene; the Beusuans had the power his country needed.

"_I watched a parade of over thirty-three thousand Beusuan soldiers. It was so excellent that it makes one want to mouth water. The reason I love Beusuandille is not out of sentimentality, but because she is not a threat to my beloved country. On the contrary; our two countries interests go hand-in-hand."_

Chief of the Beusuan military staff, Gratien Buckley, ruled out Sieen as a potential ally.

"_Sieen as an ally is militarily nonexistent. If Sieen were to be described as a 'sick man'; it must now be described as a 'dying man'."_

The flamboyant aristocrat, Adam Brisbois, made the Emperor think again. An archeologist and consular official, Brisbois often passed himself off as a Zoroaster expert; he was also a Beusuan agent. He advocated a Holy War to bring down the Grand Britannian Empire.

"_When the Saracens invade Azhadstan, sparking the flames of revolt in that nation; only then, will Britannia crumble; for Britannia is at her most vulnerable in her colonies."_

At the outbreak of war, the Beusuan Emperor saw a Holy War as the way to create revolution in Britannia's colony of Azhadstan.

"_Our consulates and agents in Sieen and Azhadstan, must inflame the whole of Britannia's control of her colonies in uprisings. For if we and the Belkans are to be bled to death, at least Britannia shall lose Azhadstan."_

The Saracen Empire had found its ally; two allies to be more exact: Beusuandille and Belka.

Anvir bypassed the Saracen cabinet, secretly signing an alliance with the two nations in March of 1913; while maintaining a public stance at neutrality.

Dijhan became the jump-off point; to set the Middle East ablaze. The Beusuan and Belkan embassies became hives for Brisbois' ravenous spies.

One group arrived from Selene; heavily disguised as a traveling circus. The word was that the Emir of Iziq had fifty thousand Muslims ready to invade Azhadstan. The "circus" slipped out of Dijhan bound for Iziq; if only they can find it...

One of the Saracens on the mission, was Serkan Terzi.

"_What do we know about Iziq beyond its name? I couldn't even visualize its place on the map; I don't even know how to get there. Do I go via California?"_

The irony was that Anvir Pasha and the other Sieen soldiers weren't fanatical believers at all. They went with Beusuandille's "Holy War" idea, out of opportunism. What Anvir really wanted was to draw together the Saracen peoples of the Middle East and East into an expanded, all-Saracen Empire.

Anvir had an army of over eight hundred thousand; mainly from Sieen; but also Arabs, Hebrews and Lycians. It was thought to be a spent force, but Anvir reformed it; Beusuandille trained it.

"_Very considerable progress has been made in the Saracen Army's efficiency. The Sieen forces must now be regarded as a matter to be taken seriously into account."_

– Lt. Colonel Francis Cunliffe-Owen – Britannic Military Attache, Dijhan

But Sieen still had not publicly declared herself as both Beusuandille and Belka's ally; the cabinet was split over whether to fight. But Sieen was desperate for money; so the Beusuans and Belkans decided to sweeten the deal, and force the Saracen's hand.

Four cruisers, the Belkan KMV _Wilhelm_ and KMV _Sudentor_; and the Beusuan BMS _Nazaire_ and BMS _Séverin_, were on the run from the Britannic Royal Navy in the Sea of Ceres. Rather conveniently, they took refuge in Djihan on the 1st of August 1913. The presence of two Belkan and two Beusuan cruisers, riding proudly at anchor in Dijhan, undermined the Saracen's pretense at neutrality; so they shrugged and told the world that they bought the ships.

The cruisers' crews were given fezzes to wear; their fancy dress antics were the talk of Dijhan.

The Beusuans and Belkans each paid over five million Francs in gold; securing Sieen as their ally. Sieen joined the First Rostillian War, pretty much on her own terms, and with her own agenda.

"_The people of the empire's eastern region are threatening trouble. There is a dry wind blowing in the east and the parched grasses await the spark, and the wind is blowing towards the Azhadi border."_

Fiction by novelist Coşkun Demicri, but based on real fears of a Holy War.

In August of 1914, the Romans called for a joint operation to invade the Saracen Empire; the Britannians agreed.

"_This would certainly be one of the most important campaigns in history. Think what Constantinople and Dijhan are to the Middle East. They are more than Londinium, Le Havre, Dinsmark, Warsaw, Rome, Selene and Urbis Lumen are to the West. Think what their fall will mean."_

– Winston Churchill – First Lord of the Britannic Admiralty

This was the battle which might turn the course of the First Rostillian War. But first, the Britannic and Roman navies would have to force their way to the Saracen Empire through the eastern Ceres Sea.

The Ameri and Euro Asians, not wanting the Britannians and Romans to dominate the Sea of Ceres, insisted on joining.

On the 18th of October, 1914, a combined Roman, Britannic, Ameri and Euro Asian fleet approached one of the Saracen Empire's major ports in their advance towards Dijhan.

"_The Saracen fleet ambushed us. Several shots from their ships had put the turret out of action, and all its crew killed; the flames didn't spare anything. Our young men, a few minutes before were alert and courageous, now corpses on the bare steel; blackened; carbonized."_

– Rear-Admiral Adam Deforest – Ameri Navy

The Saracen guns, on both land and sea, survived the naval bombardment. The Allied ships were sitting ducks.

"_I told the battery commander to increase fire. He said that the shells are exploding on the enemy ships; there is considerable damage to them."_

The Euro Asian battlecruiser EAS _Morgunite_ hit a mine. Three battleships and five battlecruisers were sunk that day; four more were crippled; seven more damaged; the Allies lost over a thousand men. It was a resounding victory for the Saracen Empire.

The Allies tried again; this time an amphibious landing on the Lycian peninsula at Galipoli. The Britannians sent in the Australian New Zealand Army Corps, known as ANZACs to spearhead the landing alongside the Romans, Britannians, Ameri and Euro Asians, while the Britannic Royal Navy and the Ameri Navy would provide support.

Contrary to later myth, the ANZACs weren't rough, tough diggers from the outback. They were mostly city dwellers, many of them first generation Britannian immigrants fighting for the mother country.

Many Saracens saw this as their fight for their empire's survival.

"_I will gladly sacrifice myself for my faith, my country, my dear Dijhan. I will crush the dirty, loathsome hands threatening my father's happiness, my innocent baby's life, my dear wife's honor. I will be as half-hearted as a Britannian. I salute you, oh apple of my eye, Dijhan. Those who are about to die, bid you farewell."_

On the 29th of December, 1914, seventy thousand Allied troops landed on the peninsula of Gelibulu; Galipoli. Private Patsy Wallis witnessed what was then, the greatest seaborne invasion ever.

"_Troops in small boats went ashore to create a landing. There was terrific bombardment; awful noise roaming about the hills, surprising the Saracens. Splendid gunnery by ours and the Ameri Navies. An awe-inspiring scene; my first experience of battle."_

The ANZACS were landed in the wrong place. Eight thousand troops struggled ashore onto a narrow strip of sand, hemmed in by steep hills; the troops christened it Anzac Cove.

"_The Saracens welcomed us with shrapnel and sprayed up the sea all about us and very few of us got ashore. There didn't seem much organization on the shore; in fact it was disorganization."_

Breaking out of Anzac Cove, the casualties soared on both sides. New Zealander, William Malone, blamed the folly and incompetence of Australian officers.

"_General Frawn had no defensive position; no plan whatsoever. Nothing but the murderous notion that the only thing to do was to plunge troops from the neck of the ridge, and into the jungle beyond."_

It was on these Lycian hills, that Australian and New Zealand identities were forged.

"_We were singing 'This Bit of the World Belongs to Us'; with much swearing and cheering we marched up hills, so steep in places that we can only just scramble up; clinging our machine guns, then dropping on all ends. It was mad and wild; thrilling."_

– A.H. Darnell – Australian Officer

The Allies would've had an easier time, if it not for the Beusuan general, Léandre Albert. He was holding troops back for an attack nine miles away that never came.

But a thirty-four year old Saracen officer, Arda Karga Atatürk, climbed to the top of a nearby ridge, and saw the ANZAC troops approaching; and his own men fleeing.

"_'Why are you running away?', I asked. 'The enemy, sir!' they said. 'You mustn't run away from the enemy.' I replied. 'We have no more ammunition!' they replied. I ordered them to fix their bayonets and lay down. And as they did so, the enemy too, laid down; we have won time._

General Arda Karga Atatürk issued a stark command.

_"I don't order you to fight, I order you to die. In the time it takes us to die, other troops and commanders can come and take our places."_

Atatürk sent an angry letter to Anvir Pasha, damning their Beusuan allies.

"_General Albert did not know our army, nor our country and did not have time to study the situation properly. I urge you strongly not to rely on the mental abilities of the Beusuans headed by Albert, whose hearts and souls are not as engaged as ours in the defense of our empire."_

The Saracens contained the Allied breakout at the cove. Galipoli made a hero out of Arda Atatürk; within eight years, he became the first leader of post-war Sieen.

The Britannian, Roman and Euro Asian landing at V Beach went very badly. Their plan was to run Britannian, Roman and Euro Asian ships; among them, the Britannian ship _River Claude_; onto the shore; their hulls no longer full of coal, but troops; but they went aground further out, exposing the Britannians, Romans and Euro Asians to withering Saracen fire.

"_The enemy commanders were sending their troops down the ramps. But they could not escape the Saracen bullets. Our fire was very effective; knocking the enemy into the sea."_

– Report of Colonel Mahmut – Saracen Army

"_The shore at V Beach was full of enemy corpses, like shoals of fish. The color of the sea changed with the blood from their bodies."_

The other landings went well, but initial success was not quickly exploited. The Allied campaign, under General Sir Christopher Hamilton, was cursed with poor coordination.

As on the Roman and Polish Fronts, the two sides dug in to a bitter trench war.

One Ameri officer watched the battle turn brutal.

"_The Australians massacred the Saracens; one Australian told me the Saracens are their national enemy."_

The conditions at Galipoli were terrible. Intense heat, bitter cold, little water.

Lieutenant Avan Hardins, leader of Squad 10 of the Euro Asian Army, wrote home to his mother.

"_Dear mother. Sitting fearlessly about two hundred yards from two million bloodthirsty Saracens, I take up my pen. I forgot to mention that I have about six feet of solid earth between me and them. The sun is very hot and I am very thirsty. The only thing there is to drink is water that comes from a nasty well, and tastes as if it had a dead mule in it. However, we are given purifying tablets, which are very good; and make the water taste as if it had two dead mules in it."_

The Saracens lost over ten thousand men in one afternoon. As the unseasonably warm Winter turned into Spring, the stench of the dead became unbearable. Eventually, an armistice was called to bury the dead.

Disease became a major killer; particularly Typhus and Dysentery.

"_My old pal, he was smart and upright as a guardsman. I've only got about ten days to see him, all crawling with his backside hanging out. We were trying to lower him into the latrine; I don't know what happened, but he suddenly rolled over into this foot wide trench and we couldn't pull him out; we didn't have the strength. He drowned in his own excrement."_

– Joe Murray – Britannic Royal Naval Division

Allied resolve was weakening, as Euro Asian Squad 10 member, Corporal Anisette Nelson realized, writing to her older sister, Edy of the Euro Asian Squad 7, fighting in Poland.

"_The morale of these troops has sunk so low, it is to be beyond description. Our commanders will eventually have to embark our troops and remove them one of these nights."_

On the 20th of April, 1915, they did just that.

General Atatürk; by then commander of the entire front; was awoken by the duty officer at three in the morning.

"_We had spotted many frigates and military transport ships. We thought it was a new invasion; but on the contrary, the Allies were running away. Their situation became hopeless. What had happened was victory."_

The Saracens did not fire on the retreating Allies; happy just to see them go, for now. After almost five terrible months, the hills of Galipoli fell silent. Both sides had suffered over a million casualties; but for the Saracens, despite them taking the brunt of the casualties, it was a triumph.

"_When the finally enemy withdrew from Lycia, Djihan was decorated from one end to the other. At night, the minerates were lighted by oil lamps; everyone was full of joy. Pale faces began to smile; Dijhan had came back to life."_

– Saracen Newspaper Account

Now the search for scapegoats began...

Tayyip blamed the Saracen's extremely heavy losses at Gallipoli, not on himself, Arda Atatürk nor Beusuan General Albert, but on "Lycian Armenians fighting alongside the Romans, Euro Asians, Ameri and Britannians in the battle."

Tension between the Saracens and their Lycian Armenian population was nothing new; but now Sieen had serious fears that the Lycian Armenians were bidding for independence.

Local Armenian resistance was more imagined than real. The Saracens responded with disproportionate, preemptive action.

Saracen Minister of the Interior, İlkin Tiryaki, issued the following decree on 26th of May, 1915.

"_Because some of the Armenians in Lycia living near the war zone of Galipoli have attacked the military forces and the innocent population, certain measures are being adopted; among which is the deportation of the Armenians."_

While the Belkan Black Sun party acknowledged İlkin's decree with joy; the Beusuan ambassador in Sieen, Céleste St Martin, warned Selene of the imminent disaster.

"_Such a mass deportation, to a destination many hundreds of kilometers away, without sufficient means of transport, via areas that are of neither accommodation, nor food, are plagued with epidemic illnesses such as Typhus will cost many lives, especially amongst women and children."_

Thousands of Armenians passed through many towns; transit points on their forced journey to Hudaydah, then part of the Saracen Empire.

Californian missionary, Tracy Atkinson, saw terrible sights in one of these towns.

"_Thousands herded together; mostly women and children; sick laying everywhere. These people have been on the road for six weeks; they have nowhere to go. They have been brutally attacked, robbed and killed."_

Hercule Rousseau, a Beusuan medical officer stationed in Lycia, photographed the plight of the Armenians. And the Californian consul on the spot reported to his ambassador.

"_Sir, I have to report one of the greatest tragedies in all of history. A revolutionary movement on part of some of the Armenians was discovered, and the Saracens took very severe measures to check it. Little distinction between those who were completely innocent, and those suspected in being involved in the movement."_

Even Armenians who survived the journey, were not safe when they reached Hudaydah, as a Beusuan diplomat reported.

"_Out of two thousand to three thousand peasant women from the Armenian plateau in Lycia who were brought here in good health, only forty to fifty skeletons are left. The prettier ones are the victims of their jailer's lust. The plain ones succumbed to blows, starvation and thirst. Every day now, more than a hundred corpses are carried out of the city."_

Perhaps eight hundred thousand Armenians died in all. Whether this was an act of centrally directed genocide, is still a matter of furious debate. The Saracens deny the charge, saying that the Armenians "died of exposure, famine and the actions of bad officials."

In February of 1916, İlkin Tiryaki, the Minister of the Interior who issued the deportation order, spoke of Sieen's role in the disaster.

"_'The removal of the Armenians has become a military necessity; but unfortunately, through the fault of bad officials, grave excess was carried out when this order was executed.' At this point, the Minister is stated to have paused and covered his eyes with his hand 'as if to avoid the contemplation of the terrible vision,' after which he continued: 'We are no savages. Care for the security of the Saracen Empire, had to predominate above all others.'"_

The Beusuans were still trying to ignite a Holy War in the Middle East.

"_In the mosques, fiery speeches are made against the Britannians; the excitement of the population is increasing. Sixty thousand Iziq riders are ready to march."_

– Beusuan report from Dijhan to Selene

The Beusuan agents who slipped into the Saracen Empire as a traveling circus, were now well en route to Iziq. On the 19th of March, 1915, they entered Iziq. Their mission: to raise an army against the Britannians, and invade Azhadstan. The team had been on the road for nine months; much of that arguing which route to take, and who was in charge. That position would be held by Beusuan spy Victor Porcher.

But then Anvir Pasha had second thoughts...

The Beusuans, in trying to stir up nations to revolt against their Britannian masters, encouraged ideas of independence. This clashed with Anvir's vision of an expanded, all Saracen empire. Anvair pulled the Saracens out of the mission, leaving the Beusuans to go it alone. And when they finally reached Iziq's capital, the Emir kept them waiting another two months before he had even seen them.

"_His excellency listed the reasons why he could not receive us earlier. Of course it had nothing to do with anything political. He compared us with tradesmen, with lots of wears in which he could pick whatever he fancied and considered necessary. Everything seemed to be a business transaction for him."_

– Memoirs of Victor Porcher

The Emir played the Beusuans off against the Britannians; great riches and even his country's independence were at stake. He hit Porcher with a demand for ten million pounds and a hundred thousand rifles and guns.

The Emir had long been on the Britannian's payroll; now they upped the bribe to keep Iziq offside.

"_There were rumors in the arrival of huge money transports from Azhadstan. We worked out that the closer this caravan got, the icier our relationship with the Emir became."_

The Beusuans finally realized they were nothing but pawns in the Emir's game; and abandoned the operation. Holy War wasn't setting the East ablaze but it retained the power to petrify the west, particularly Britannia; and Anvir had no intention of halting his expansionist plans. He sent Ariel Eustis; a distinguished Beusuan field marshal to take over command in the present day Middle Eastern Coalition, to drive the Saracens into Azhadstan. Then 72 years old, Eustis kept in touch with his family.

"_I could never imagine that at my old age, that fate would take me so far out into the world, through countries that filled our imaginations when we were young."_

Britannia decided that a show of strength was needed in the Middle East; to persuade the people that _they_ were the masters there, not the Beusuans or Sieen.

By May of 1915, a Britannian division under the command of General Sir Charles Townsend, was advancing toward the border toward the MEC, then part of the Saracen Empire. Just when they reached the border, they were stopped by the Sieen 6th Army. The Britannians decided to hold the line at Sais, a town along the Blue Nile.

The Saracens surrounded them and the Britannians settled in for a siege. Major Dunn wrote home to his wife on December 25th, 1915; Christmas Day.

"_A very good dinner today; maartin, Scotch broth, salmon mayonnaise, beef conflate, roast duck and green peas, Roman eggs; chocolate. And of course we toasted to all our dear ones at home."_

The Britannians found themselves up against Ariel Eustis; now in charge of the besieging Saracen Army; his conquest of Azhadstan on hold.

"_Unfortunately, the Britannians have dug in well, and we don't have the technical means to get rid of them. Whether we meet again in good health, is in God's hand."_

– Field Marshal Ariel Eustis – Beusuan Army

Townsend was optimistic that his garrison would be rescued within days. But by January of 1916, with food running out, their own cavalry came reluctantly to the rescue.

"_About three weeks ago, the first horse fell under the butcher's knife. Since then, they have been slain daily; about twenty at a time. We have it in steak and kidney pie, horse mince, horse rissoles, potted horse, horse soup, stuffed horse, meat, etc. Ad nauseaum."_

– Ian Martin, Britannian Officer – letter to his mother

Hundreds of Britannian soldiers died to save Townsend's garrison.

"_This morning, there was a strong Britannian attack. Between the battle lines, the field is littered with Britannian corpses."_

– Field Marshial Ariel Eustis – Beusuan Army

"_The relieving force downstream has again failed to get through. Townsend has issued a communique to us saying, 'The eyes of Britannia and Azhadstan are upon us, and we shall go down as heroes.' which doesn't do us much good. I rather not be a hero in Sais, and have plenty to eat."_

– L.S. Bell Syer, Britannian Officer – letter to his mother

On the 24th of April, 1916, during the last desperate days of the siege, with Townsend's garrison suffering from starvation, scurvy, and pneumonia, a gallant attempt was made to send a ship carrying several tons of food up the Blue Nile to Sais. Cemil Arap was one of the Saracen troops who stretched a wire across the Blue Nile; ensnaring the ship.

"_We confiscated a Britannian boat, which carried all kinds of food; enough to feed five thousand for two months. It was named _Julina_, but we renamed it _Ganimet_; the Godsend."_

Townsend became so desperate, that the Britannians tried to make an offer to Saracengeneral Cemil Pasha for the freedom of the garrison.

"_General Townsend offered to me one million Britannian Pounds for the freedom of his garrison. Had this offer been made in other circumstances, the answer would've been one word out of the barrel of my rifle. Trying to keep calm, I replied that I took this offer as a joke."_

Finally, on the 29th of April, 1916, after 146 days of siege, Townsend surrendered; an even more humiliating defeat than Galipoli.

"_All up now; what a pity. Never shall I forget the day of surrender. We settled down to the melancholy task of destruction. Poor gunners; some were in tears as the guns they tended to were blown to pieces. The Saracens marched in at noon; by the waters of the Blue Nile, we sat down and wept."_

– Memoirs of William Spackman – Britannian Officer

Field Marshal Eustis died of Typhus a few weeks before the Saracen victory at Sais; but it was in line with something he wrote, an unusually modern and prophetic view.

"_For me, the present war is only the beginning of a long and historical development, at who's end will stand the defeat of both Britannia and Amerique's world position. The hallmark of the 20th Century must be the revolution of the colored races against the colonial imperialism of Sotia."_

"_The evening after the fall, the Saracens marched into the city, to which we had sorrowfully buried the much loved field marshal, only weeks earlier. The Saracen commander, wanted to bring the news of the fall of the Sais garrison to the passed on leader for which it was."_

– Memoirs of Gautier Fabre – Beusuan Soldier

Townsend was sent off to a comfortable captivity in Dijhan; during the siege, approximately 1,750 Britannian and Azhadi soldiers died; but the worst lay ahead. Twelve thousand were marched through the desert to Adnah.

"_A large percentage of the men were quite done for and couldn't possibly move another inch. They were laying on the ground, suffering from high fever and Dysentery, and were smothered from head to foot in filth; and covered with flies."_

– D. Hughes – Britannian Soldier

By the war's close, over four thousand veterans of Sais died in prison camp; victims of willful neglect by both Sieen and Britannia.

"_Never come back no more, boys. Never come back no more. The camp has becoming a bore, boys. It has becoming a terrible bore. Shot up the old shop window. Put a notice over the door. We're packing our kits for the jolly old ritz, and we ain't coming back no more."_

The Allies had written off the Saracen Empire from the start, but then suffered major defeats at its hands. The Saracens would see out the war though it wasn't God or Beusuandille that kept the Saracens fighting until the end; but survival and political ambition.

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In the next episode of The First Rostillian War, the Russo-Spanish and Beusuans fight on the Estainian mainland, while Birkaine and Belka declare war along the Eastern Front; and millions get caught in the middle. A war with out pity or rules.

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	5. Interesting Times (1914 - 1916)

**Author's Note: Wow, been a while since I made an update to this story. As such I promise to continue work on this piece of art. Also with help from my friend, TheAstronomicon, I've updated the format, starting with this chapter.**

**Anyways, this story may contain scenes that may be disturbing to some readers.**

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**The First Rostillian War**

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The Northern and Eastern Fronts were the conflicts at the heart of the First Rostillian War; a struggle which devastated the lives of both Russo-Spain's and Eastern Sotia's peoples as old scores were settled, new hatreds forged.

A harbinger for the Schayne Plains War.

"_There has never been a war such as this; fought with such bestial fury." _- Colonel Cellini Alves - Russo-Spanish Army

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**Episode Five**

**Interesting Times**

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From the very beginning, the Russo-Spanish Front; so called the Northern War in later years, was vastly different from the other theaters of the Great War. On one end was the distant Beusuan Empire, and on the other the Russo-Spanish Empire and United States of Euro Asia, between them both the vastness of the ocean, and distant colonies.

Throughout the Northern War, along with its operations elsewhere the Beusuan Empire managed purely marvelous logistical feats, transporting tens of thousands of men and material through hostile waters and landing in the Russo-Spanish Heartlands; the first enemy to do so since Napoleon I.

It contrasted to the stagnate Roman and Polish Fronts, the Northern War saw a constant fluid situation, battle lines and defensive formations were non-existent in the face of mobile armies and fast moving tactics, cities fell in hours and were captured and recaptured in days.

It was a war without mercy or premonition, both sides rushing to action on impulse without forethought. Like so many others in the Great War, it strained the two great nations to the core, leading to revolutions and beyond, setting the stage for the next hundred years.

For the Russo-Spanish, the Northern War marked the first time they were exposed to a new kind of war; a war that made no distinction between civilian and military; no difference in cities and fortresses.

Before that however; the opening stages of the Northern War dismantled Russo-Spanish morale for most of the war. Russo-Spanish naval supremacy had existed for over two hundred years; regardless the Russo-Spanish Imperial Navy was wholly unprepared for the Great War; and decisive battles in nineteen fourteen proved just that. While Belkan and Beusuan cruisers ran across the Adrianic, Beusuan dreadnoughts met Russo-Spanish dreadnoughts in a series of crushing defeats leading to the loss of ten of the Russo-Spanish Empire's sixteen dreadnought battleships. Beusuandille's heavy cruisers destroyed smaller flotillas and their light cruisers raided Russo-Spanish shipping; all the while chipping away at the formerly thought to be invincible Imperial Navy.

The cost of their victories in nineteen fourteen at sea were not measured in just the tonnage of the ships they sank but in the damage they did to the Russo-Spanish psyche. For the first time in hundreds of years, the Empire was legitimately exposed to foreign invasion; and invade the Beusuans did.

The Beusuans landed in August of nineteen fourteen on the Estainian peninsula where the Imperial Army measuring at only two hundred thousand men at war's beginning was completely overwhelmed. The two armies starkly contrasted one another; the Russo-Spanish soldiers were largely conscripts, feudal levies from nobles across the country; most were illiterate and their aristocratic officers often bought their commissions. The Beusuans were the complete opposite; a professional streamlined force organized under Prussian military ideals of professional officers leading trained enlisted men and numbering at six hundred thousand; Beusuandille possessed more than double the amount of men of Russo-Spain in the beginning of the war; a fact they capitalized on almost immediately as was noted in the journal of Beusuan general Patrice Gosselin.

"_These Russo-Spaniards lack in volume, discipline and any sense of capability. This sham of an army is less fitting to be in formations than they are to be tending to fields." _

This observation was proven at the first contact between the two armies on the outskirts of the town of Murcia on August fourteenth, nineteen fourteen; where a force of just twenty thousand Beusuans opposed a force of nearly sixty thousand Russo-Spaniards, well beyond a fair percentage of the entire Imperial Army.

The Beusuans through both superior discipline and strategic forethought took the battle at an utter route to the Russo-Spanish forces; killing some thirteen thousand men and taking nearly eight thousand prisoner with the rest scattering. It was another decisive blow to Russo-Spanish morale.

Advances like the battle at Murcia would continue throughout the months of nineteen fourteen and fifteen, with the Russo-Spanish preferring to fall back and avoid confrontation at all costs, at the expense of their people. The Beusuans had swiftly occupied large swaths of the Estainian peninsula utterly or minimalistly opposed leaving hundreds of thousands of people under foreign occupation for the first time in a century.

Unlike Napoleon's armies however which had some margin of respect for civilians, the Beusuans held no such reservations. Looting was common at first and the new masters were held little kindness to any sort of slip up under their form of martial law. The early victories made it impossible for Russo-Spain to call up much of her reserves, leaving her short of manpower and exposed. This was doubly bad due to the fact of the Belkan Nationalist Empire demanding much of the Empire's resources down in Euro-Asia to defend their mutual southern border, fighting alongside the Euro-Asian and Polish armies in the trenches. Being overrun and outnumbered however did not dissuade the Russo-Spanish, whose people's cultural stalwart character was shown through brightly in then Empress Olga Romanova's solemn speech to the Noble Council, Russo-Spain's parliament in September of nineteen fourteen.

_"It is my most solemn duty to deliver unto you the truth of the matter, gathered lords. Much of Sotia is conquered by the purist Belkan 'Reich' and their people ever oppressed by the dark hand of the Black Sun. They have massed many victories in Poland and in Rome and move to threaten our neighbors and our children. Along with this, the Beusuans have occupied large parts of our nation and accumulate victories against our forces. Despite this; neither Euro-Asia nor Russo-Spain shall ever surrender. We shall fight the Belkans and their allies in the fields, at sea and in the air; we shall resist them until such a time that we can resist no more and that their empire and their ambition is broken on the struggle! We shall resist even when they march on Urbis Lumen and Saint Ark is burning, we will not give into their depraved visions of conquest! Their new world order shall not rise so long as the Russo-Spanish Empire draws breath, and should we the free nations of the old world be conquered in totality, may our overseas empires guarded by the stalwart Imperial Navy continue the fight until such a time that the New World comes to the aid of the Old." _

To date the speech is regarded as one of the finest moments in oratory history and were the words that needed to be heard by the newly raised armies of the Empire to reaffirm that they were not yet beaten, and never would be.

While the home front for the Russo-Spanish was bleak, her overseas empire was in no better a position. Their colony of Arcadia bordered Beusuandille directly and was one of the first targets to be besieged. The colonial garrison was a mere ten thousand men and the colony did not have the strength of numbers to call up more; its loss was the first true blow to the Russo-Spanish, not only diminishing their morale but saying elsewhere as well as home there was little they could do to stop their enemies advance. Likewise considered part of the Northern War, the Beusuans quickly seized the Euro-Asian territory of Port Royal Island in the north Neputnian Sea early in the war as a refueling point for their transoceanic supply lines.

In nineteen fourteen, the Northern War seemed lost to those few nations who had aligned themselves against the reaching arms of the Beusuan and Belkan Empires. The tide shifted however later in the year, in October when forty thousand veteran soldiers of both the Euro-Asian and Russo-Spanish armies were transferred from the southern, Polish Front. They met up with eighty thousand men risen from Alisonia's reserves and were tasked with a single task; retake Estainia; all costs were acceptable.

Christophe Portmann of the Euro Asian Army Squad 7, saw the transfer of the squad to the Estanian peninsula as a personal matter. To him, as well as a few other members of his squad, this was a fight for the survival of their nation of birth.

"_I don't care if I end up killed, because the safety of my surviving family in Russo-Spain takes precedence over my own. I cannot even fathom the idea of the Swans taking over my nation of birth; I _dare_ not to."_

Captain Welkin Gunther, Squad 7's commander, saw bigger things coming and outright questioned the idea of moving most of Euro Asia's most experienced units from one heavily needed front to another.

"_If we move most of our veteran units from Poland, we could be left with a manpower gap in the trenches; and to me, that has the potential for disaster."_

But it was of little use; they had their orders. On October twenty-fourth, nineteen fourteen, they engaged the Beusuans at the frontline in southeastern Estainia.

For Private Jane Turner, this was only the start of a slide into moral descent.

"_Let them come. I'll be sure to hear them scream for mercy before I stick my bayonet into them."_

The combined Russo-Spanish and Euro Asian force met to stop the Beusuans near the northern entrance to Polota Pass of the Amber Mountains.

The stakes were high; Russo-Spain and Euro Asia fighting to defend their native soils.

Hugo Aritza's regiment was whisked from the Polish Front to the Northern.

"_After a very long train ride, a quick march for nearly five hours through the Polota Pass straight to the battlefield; it was there, I had my baptism by fire. Oddly enough, it left me completely cold. In a flash, I thought of home, gave one glance to Heaven and charged straight into the line of fire._

_When the injured scream, your heart clams up."_

Thankfully, the combined Russo-Spanish and Euro Asian force eventually stopped the Beusuans in their tracks by the beginning of November nineteen fourteen. The combined force then went on the offensive and begun gradually pushing the Beusuans back.

Further down the front, was the village of Aldea. On December twelfth, nineteen fourteen, the Beusuans, in an attempt to regain the upper hand from the Russo-Spanish and Euro Asians, used the area as a testbed for an experimental weapon.

Nikifor Mihayov, a civilian, raised the alarm.

"_I got up, went outside and I saw this something, that looked like smoke. I ran back home shouting 'Fire! Fire!'"_

Behind the Allied lines, Russo-Spanish General Basil Vasilyev got snippets of information that didn't add up. Hundreds mysteriously killed; trenches full of corpses, that might not be dead.

"_Bodies in a state of collapse with little signs of life are lying in the wood. What could be the reason for such an unusual occurrence? Could some of those already buried be in a state of coma, and not dead at all?"_

From the church tower, Beusuan observers watched the first major use of chemical warfare in history. The Beusuans fired eighteen thousand tear gas shells onto the Russo-Spanish and Euro Asian lines.

The conventional wisdom was that the wind was blowing the wrong way, and it was too cold for the gas to work. The Russo-Spanish and Euro Asians withstood the attack. But there were victims, as General Vasilyev heard, and Nikifor Mihayov saw.

"_They were carried, crowded onto wagons; some lying on top of others. Those who could walked; their faces were pale blue; they had foam coming out of their mouths."_

Three months later, the fields of Jacenty on the Polish front, wrongly earned the morbid distinction of being the site of the first gas attack. Aldea went unreported; never investigated.

On February thirteenth nineteen fifteen, The Birkanian Union declared war against its western neighbor, the Belkan Nationalist Empire.

Historians now viewed this as a racial war, between Teutons and Slavs, with the Belkan Nationalist Empire on one side, and its Slav enemy, Birkaine on the other. Caught in the clashing giants were Ostens and Darcsens; without statehood or voice, with no means of defense.

One Birkanian presented his men with a historic opportunity.

"_Comrades. Our eternal enemy, Belkaland is wanting to enslave Birkaine, our country, which has long suffocated under Belkaland's dead weight. The time has come to end their fascist rule!"_

The Belkans were now attempting to hold the first line of defense at the fortress city of Gotthilf near the border. If it and a number of others fell, so might eastern Belkaland itself.

Inside, the Belkans were dug in and waiting as the Birkanians were pounding the city day after day with artillery fire.

On March twelfth, nineteen fifteen, the Birkanians, believing the garrison to be crippled and demoralized, set up for the final attack. However, the Belkans were able to keep well supplied during the entire siege.

Vasya Utkin watched the attack go badly wrong.

"_Instead of us marching toward the fortress with little effort like we expected, we experienced very stiff resistance. Wave after wave, they kept on wiping out with ease. In the end, we had no choice but to retreat east across the border."_

The Birkanian attack force had fallen apart due to bad intelligence, and poor leadership at the front. The Birkanian Army began falling back. The leaders on the front were sent back to Ferrograd and shot.

While the blood was being spilled throughout Sotia, a ring of neutrals watched from the sidelines, like vultures; waiting to see which side to join.

Forget liberal ideals and high principles; the question was who would offer them the most, and who would win this war?

These smaller nations, Wolfkrone, Skandia, Acrium, Eslovakia, Hälsingland, all had interests, scores to settle, lands they wanted back. The price for any alliance would be high.

In Roskilde, Wofkrone's leaders have already cashed in. In November of nineteen fourteen, the leaders of Wolfkrone had decided that she must "act for her own national good"; they referred to his as 'Sacred Self-Interest'. In practice, it meant joining the side of the highest bidder.

Tempted by Belkaland's military muscle and the bait dangled before Wolfkrone that it would be able to conquer its long time Polish enemies.

Poland was further stretched in the conflict when Krone forces invaded on December twentieth, nineteen fourteen, forcing both sides to take part in some of the harshest fronts in the entire war.

Wolfkrone's border with Poland zigzagged for four hundred miles through the Inge Mountains. The Poles held the high ground on northern and central parts of the front; it was brutal terrain.

In front of the Krone, the vast Kennest Mountain.

By sunrise on December twenty-ninth, the Krone had climbed its sheer rock face onto a narrow ledge; they were now fighting a vertical war. Above them, the Polish had fewer men, but showed a tenacity that surprised the Krone.

Polish colonel, Oscar Jedynak, watched his men attack the Krone below.

"_They threw several hand grenades onto the ridge which was a hundred meters below them. Judging by the screams of the wounded, and from the fact that the machine gun hasn't fired a shot all day, we must have been successful."_

But the Krone clung on. Each side burrowed into the mountains, and spent the next two years trying to dislodge the other. Both sides worked twenty-four hour shifts, digging tunnels; trying to reach the enemy's position, and blast the mountain from under them.

Some went mad listening for the sound of enemy drills.

"_My nerves are shot to pieces, I've got to calm down. I've now been on the front line for four months, and in constant fear and torment." _- Pål Amundsen, Krone officer – letter to his family

Avalanches became another hazard of war; sometimes trigger by shell fire.

Krone soldier, Jeremias Aalto, was caught in one that wiped out nine barrack huts, killing two hundred seventy-two.

"_I stayed squashed under the debris of the beds. For the first quarter of an hour, I could feel fifty or so men moving around me, and then one by one, they fell silent and died."_

Wolfkrone's border with Poland leveled out along the Topias River Plain. Wolfkrone's first attack failed with heavy loss of life. Poland was not as lucky, and both sides mindly ordered another and another; fifteen battles in all, at the cost of nearly four hundred thousand lives on both sides.

In the Spring of nineteen fifteen, the Belkans made plans for their big offensive along the Eastern Front. The Generals, including General Maximilian and the Black Sun Party ruled out total victory, but a decisive blow might force the Birkanians to sue for peace.

Belkaland moved four divisions from the Roman Front and four from the Polish Front, eight divisions total, to the Eastern Front to try to break through the Birkanian lines fifteen miles east of the border, in the Schayne Plains.

On April eleventh, the Belkans began their push. Caught by surprise and low on shells, the Birkanians retreated; they fled, but not towards the negotiation table.

They scorched the earth; anything that the Birkanians found to be of use to the Belkans, they either took or destroyed.

The Birkanians were looking for scapegoats, and many of the Darcsens in Eastern Sotia fitted the bill. They didn't look Slavic, and their native language, sounded suspiciously like Belkan. And even though many Darcsens served in the Birkanian Army, many Birkanians saw Darcsens as dirty, half-human creatures, to which they and the Belkans referred to as 'Dark Hairs'.

Belkaland did not treat them any better. Millions of Darcsens in Belkaland were uprooted by Belkan sponsored Darcsen hunts; many of these never returned home.

Meanwhile on the Northern Front, early nineteen fifteen, there was no doubt as to who was slowly beating who.

Many Beusuan prisoners were paraded through the towns of the Estainian peninsula, to which they were kicked and beaten to death.

In the winter of nineteen sixteen, the members of the Russo-Spanish government came up with the idea of sending ten thousand Beusuan prisoners to an isolated cape along the shore of the Gulf of Alisonia, and starved to death.

The partnership between Beusuandille and its allies was rotten to the core. The Belkans and Krone referred to the Beusuans as "Our secret enemies."

It was alliances that will keep the war going.

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In the next episode of the Great War, the Polish and Roman armies face renewed offensives from Belkaland and Wolfkrone while a single battle in western Rome shows the resolve of both the Roman and Belkan armies as hints of mercy coincide with generals ordering battalions over the edge and the iconic Britannic cry of Once More Unto the Breach is heard alongside the mechanical grind of Belkaland's newest and most terrible war machines which threaten to rewrite the very nature of warfare.

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**Like always, read and review.**


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